What’s a meme price? Seemingly greater than you’d suppose.

Doing Issues Media, an Atlanta-founded firm that owns lots of the hottest Instagram meme accounts like @ShitHeadSteve, @FourTwenty and @DoggosDoingThings, has taken in a $21.5 million Sequence A. The spherical was led by Volition Capital, a Boston VC agency that has backed corporations like Chewy.com, the pet-supplies e-tailer.

Doing Issues Media is worthwhile and introduced in additional than $10 million in income final 12 months from a mix of sponsored ads and e-commerce, largely attire and different objects bearing the meme accounts’ manufacturers. The five-year-old firm hadn’t meant to take any exterior capital however thought Volition’s expertise backing Chewy.com would profit a dedication to develop its personal e-commerce operation. “After they hit us up, we had been like, ‘Yeah, okay, let’s hear them out,’” Hailey says. “Our aim is to maintain development that’s sustainable.”

Memes are all over the place on-line: foolish, viral content material commenting on popular culture, usually by nothing greater than recycled joke pictures. However it’s been laborious to gauge how nicely an organization may monetize them—or how helpful such an organization can be. In 2020, Warner Music reportedly spent $85 million on IMGN Media, which owns issues just like the Instagram account @Daquan. Given what Warner paid for IMGN and the brand new inflow of Sequence A money, it’s cheap to imagine Doing Issues acquired a valuation that neared $100 million on this newest funding spherical.

Doing Issues weathered the pandemic downturn in advertising {dollars} by pitching advertisers like Bud Mild, T-Cell and Netflix to its younger, loyal viewers. It has 25 social media meme accounts, a group of manufacturers with over 65 million followers throughout Instagram and different platforms.

“Corporations like Doing Issues have already completed the toughest half: They’ve created distinctive content material, they’ve amassed large audiences, and their audiences are very engaged,” says Larry Cheng, a founding associate at Volition. “We expect there’s loads of room to create new manufacturers and broaden to new classes and likewise to increase to completely different distribution channels.”

That’s difficult language to imply Doing Issues will do issues like improve its Net sequence, TV-show-type movies uploaded largely to YouTube. YouTube presents a profitable ad-revenue sharing program, the place a clip with, say, 20 million views may earn $100,000 in promoting {dollars}. Snap hosts sequence like these, too, although the economics are much less enticing. It’s additionally potential to put a sequence’ bonus content material behind a subscription paywall just like the one Patreon presents.

These sequence are tougher to tug off than publishing humorous canine movies. Doing Issues already had a bonafide hit with its net present All Gasoline No Breaks, however the comedically breakneck examination of America’s stranger corners—Proud Boys, Burning Man, porn stars—ended final spring amid a contract dispute with its host, 23-year-old Andrew Callaghan.

A latest success has been Recess Remedy, a present that includes candid interviews with youngsters about matters like whether or not magic exists and whether or not komodo dragons eat people. A brand new sequence shall be known as Enterprise Breakdown. In it, host Graeme Barrett will attempt to delineate how an organization operates, examaning “peculiar companies being, like, ‘How do you generate income?’” Hailey says. “Perhaps a waste disposal plant, the place he’ll see if there’s any cash in poop.” For an extraspecial episode, Barrett may strive some self-examination and overview the meme enterprise.