NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HealthGuru Media, the leading provider of health information videos online, announced today that it has raised $6 million of fresh capital from a syndicate that includes new investor Western Technology Investment as well as existing venture backers Castile Ventures and Village Ventures. The investment in Health Guru will help the company to build on its already dominant position in the health video sector and to satisfy high demand for its new video syndication platform, which will be out of beta next month.
Health Guru Media is the most comprehensive health video resource on the web, with a library of more than 2,250 titles covering more than 100 different health conditions, plus lifestyle topics that include wellness and nutrition. HealthGuru.com also features innovative video products, including a video quiz application that was named the best Web Based Resource/Tool in the 2011 Web Health Awards.
The company’s expertise at creating innovative, high quality video content has lead to measurable success. In May of 2011, Health Guru Media had more than 30 million video views. Among providers of health video, Health Guru was ranked first in minutes per viewer, video views, unique viewers, and total minutes of video streamed. HealthGuru.com was also the leading destination site for health video on the web (comScore VideoMetrix, 5/11; excluding networks).
“HealthGuru streams more video than WebMD and Everyday Health combined.” said CEO Joshua Silberstein. “comScore data for May 2011 shows that WebMD and Everyday Health streamed three million and one million minutes of video respectively, while Health Guru streamed 84 million minutes of video.”
The success that Health Guru has achieved in the consumer market has enabled them to bring a unique value proposition to the advertising community – the ability to communicate with the right audience, in the right context, using video as the medium, at scale. This combination has successfully attracted both major CPG and pharmaceutical brands as advertisers.
Jay Cohan of Western Technology Investment added, “Health Guru’s market leading viewership metrics were what first caught our attention, but it was the power of their offering to the advertiser – the ability to create custom content, drive deep engagement with video applications, and deliver the message to precisely the right audience – that made this a very compelling investment for WTI.”
The company also announced that Donald Hackett has joined its Board of Directors. Mr. Hackett was formerly the CEO of DrKoop.com and 1-800-Doctors. Don joins current board member Thomas Harrison, the Chairman and CEO of Diversified Agency Services (DAS), the largest division of Omnicom, to provide senior level guidance to the company as it continues its rapid growth.
About HealthGuru Media
Health Guru Media (http://www.HealthGuru.com) is the leading provider of health video on the web. The Health Guru content library has over 2,250 videos covering 100+ health conditions. The videos are featured on HealthGuru.com (the web’s largest destination site for health video), on premium health partner sites, and power the largest health video channel on YouTube. Health Guru videos have been watched more than half a billion times – making Health Guru Media the largest provider of health video on the web.