Next Issue Media has just raised $50 million dollars for their Netflix for magazine service that is being marketed in the US and Canada.
The funding comes from investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) and follows a string of massive funding announcements in the media/tech space, like BuzzFeed ($50 million), Reddit ($50 million), Vox ($46.5 million), Imgur ($40 million), Business Insider ($12 million), and Vice ($500 million).
Currently Next Issue only has 150,000 paid digital subscribers in the US and Canada, but they have yet to achieve profitability. As Next Issue Media is not a public company, it does not have to share its financials and so one does not know what kind of shape the company is in. The fact they are actively courting funding leads me to believe their current business model might be unviable.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.