Investments
191Portfolio Exits
48Funds
1About Hearst Ventures
Hearst Ventures is a unit of The Hearst Corporation, a diversified communications companies in the U.S. The group initiates and oversees equity investments in early-stage technology-enabled businesses, focusing on companies that utilize technology as a platform to establish new media markets or alter current media market dynamics. The group seeks companies with unique content, productivity tools, or proprietary technologies or services that will provide long-term strategic value to The Hearst Corporation.
Latest Hearst Ventures News
Oct 30, 2023
Denmark-based Creative Force, an end-to-end creative operations workflow platform, announced that it has raised $8.9M in a Series A round of funding, bringing the company’s total funding to $17.9M. The investment comes from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO) and Hearst Ventures, the global venture capital division of Hearst. Creative Force says it will use the funding to scale its Danish headquarters and new US office in Boston. The company also aims to integrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) into its platform to enable retailers and brands to leverage the capabilities of AI in their creative workflows. Founded in 2019, Creative Force is a cloud-based workflow platform that helps large brands and studios create new content quickly, launch products faster, and avoid errors, manual data entry, and reshoots. The company claims the platform improves communication and collaboration throughout the entire content production process, maintains high quality and consistency, and increases efficiency by at least 30 percent. The Creative Force platform also easily integrates with popular creative software, including Capture One, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Adobe Workfront. Creative Force handled more than 10M creative assets through its platform in the past year alone and has been quietly building its technology and working with some of the world’s biggest brands.
Hearst Ventures Investments
191 Investments
Hearst Ventures has made 191 investments. Their latest investment was in Creative Force as part of their Series A on October 10, 2023.

Hearst Ventures Investments Activity

Date | Round | Company | Amount | New? | Co-Investors | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
10/16/2023 | Series A | Creative Force | $8.9M | Yes | 2 | |
10/13/2023 | Convertible Note | PairUp | $1.1M | Yes | Graham & Walker, Looking Glass Capital, Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, and Undisclosed Investors | 1 |
10/1/2023 | Seed VC - II | Basil Systems | $2.45M | Yes | ||
6/6/2023 | Series A - II | |||||
5/5/2023 | Series A - II |
Date | 10/16/2023 | 10/13/2023 | 10/1/2023 | 6/6/2023 | 5/5/2023 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Round | Series A | Convertible Note | Seed VC - II | Series A - II | Series A - II |
Company | Creative Force | PairUp | Basil Systems | ||
Amount | $8.9M | $1.1M | $2.45M | ||
New? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
Co-Investors | Graham & Walker, Looking Glass Capital, Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures, and Undisclosed Investors | ||||
Sources | 2 | 1 |
Hearst Ventures Portfolio Exits
48 Portfolio Exits
Hearst Ventures has 48 portfolio exits. Their latest portfolio exit was Contagious Communications on August 11, 2023.
Date | Exit | Companies | Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model. | Acquirer | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
8/11/2023 | Acquired | 1 | |||
12/19/2022 | Acquired | 7 | |||
12/12/2022 | Acquired | 7 | |||
Date | 8/11/2023 | 12/19/2022 | 12/12/2022 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Exit | Acquired | Acquired | Acquired | ||
Companies | |||||
Valuation | |||||
Acquirer | |||||
Sources | 1 | 7 | 7 |
Hearst Ventures Fund History
1 Fund History
Hearst Ventures has 1 fund, including Financial Venture Fund.
Closing Date | Fund | Fund Type | Status | Amount | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
8/3/2016 | Financial Venture Fund | 4 |
Closing Date | 8/3/2016 |
---|---|
Fund | Financial Venture Fund |
Fund Type | |
Status | |
Amount | |
Sources | 4 |
Hearst Ventures Team
7 Team Members
Hearst Ventures has 7 team members, including current Senior Managing Director, Kenneth A. Bronfin.
Name | Work History | Title | Status |
---|---|---|---|
Kenneth A. Bronfin | Senior Managing Director | Current | |
Name | Kenneth A. Bronfin | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Work History | |||||
Title | Senior Managing Director | ||||
Status | Current |
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