Former Jukin Media co-founders and execs Jonathan Skogmo, Mike Skogmo, and Anton Reut have reunited to launch their own travel media brand, LOST iN, with a $4 million seed round of investment from people like pocket.watch founder Chris Williams and Fullscreen founder George Strompolos.
As part of LOST iN’s founding, it acquired the travel guidebook publisher of the same name, which was founded in 2014 and has so far produced 25 books about global travel. It’s also launching with plans to partner with travel-focused digital creators to make original content across various platforms.
The goal, the company says, is to “captivate today’s premium economy traveler,” aka “young working professionals looking for a comfortable, yet authentic travel experience.”
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LOST iN is the Skogmos’ and Reut’s first joint venture since they sold Jukin Media to Reader’s Digest owner Trusted Media Brands for an undisclosed sum back in 2021. Jonathan will serve as LOST iN’s CEO, with Mike as CMO and Reut as COO.
“With Jukin we learned how to build and monetize massive audiences, and we’ll leverage those learnings to focus on travel, a category that’s ripe for disruption and that attracts an affluent, highly-desirable consumer,” Jonathan said in a statement. “The acquisition of the LOST iN guidebooks business gives us a strong direct-to-consumer element to pair alongside the ad-supported business that we’ll build around digital video, and we’ll continue to diversify around events, memberships, and other initiatives that will add value for our community.”
Reut added, “The travel industry continues to grow significantly, yet traditional travel media has struggled to find a way to connect with digital-native audiences. LOST iN will be the solution for travel enthusiasts to get entertaining and informative travel content, and for advertisers looking to reach today’s traveler. It is truly a win-win-win for audiences, creators, and advertisers.”
LOST iN’s $4 million seed round was led by MaC Venture Capital, with additional investment and advising from BDMI, Pitbull Ventures, Hawke Media founder Erik Huberman, Skybound founder David Alpert, Kevin Gould of Kombo Ventures, Richard Wolpert, Matthew Rutler, the aforementioned Williams and Strompolos, and other angel investors.
“Jonathan, Mike and Anton have a proven track record of success in the digital media space,” Marlon Nichols, Co-Founder and Managing General Partner at MaC Venture Capital, said in a statement. “Their last venture, Jukin Media, was a truly innovative business, and now they’re poised to revamp a fragmented travel media space with few trusted voices and thousands of creators and influencers creating content independently. This team has the expertise to identify and partner with talented creators to become an indispensable part of the travel enthusiast’s media diet.”
LOST iN says it’s already looking forward to more acquisitions, and is hedging bets on data from McKinsey that indicates travel is forecast to grow an average of 5.8% per year through 2032–more than double the expected annual growth rate of the economy overall.
