Doing Things Media Raises $21.5 Million, Eyes Crypto Expansion

Doing Things Media, the digital media company that owns viral internet brands like Animals Doing Things (4.9 million followers on Instagram), ShitheadSteve (6.8 million), Middle Class Fancy (2.5 million), Four Twenty (4.1 million), and formerly All Gas No Brakes has raised $21.5 million in a Series A funding round.

The round was led by Boston-based firm Volition Capital and is “an effort to support the company’s immense growth as it continues to scale audience and engagement, diversify revenue streams and build new content brands across multiple content platforms and verticals,” according to a press release.

Doing Things Media specifically plans to use funds to expand its 25+ content brands (most of which began on Instagram) across various social platforms, plus continue to grow its ecommerce arm (which manages merch shops for its brands) and “navigate new audience and monetization opportunities in Web3, including NFTs and other emerging tech.”

The company also intends to work with the creators of its current stable of brands to develop new IPs, it says. As examples of what it hopes to build, Doing Things points to recently launched cross-platform video properties including Recess Therapy

on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube; Bob Does Sports on Instagram and YouTube; and The Influence on Snapchat.

In a statement, Doing Things Media co-founder and CEO Reid Hailey said his business never intended to raise outside funding, but found that Volition Capital and its managing partner Larry Cheng “were totally aligned with our vision and already followed several of our brands.”

“Working with Volition allows us to further expand our audience, partner with creators and build new properties that speak to Gen Z and Millennial audiences in a way that other media companies cannot,” Hailey said.

In his own statement, Cheng said that Volition is “honored to help [Doing Things Media] aggressively expand their social brand portfolio, distribution channels, and monetization to reach hundreds of millions of people across the world.”

Doing Things Media says its brands have a collective following of more than 65 million people.