Male-focused publishing company Thrillist Media Network has raised $54 million in a split round that see’s the company spin off its Jackthreads, Inc. e-commerce store into a separate entity.

It’s unknown how the round was split, however, leading the round for Jackthreads was Oakshot Investment Partners with SBNY (previously Softbank Capital) participating; the part of the round for the new stand-alone Thrillist included German media giant Axel Springer SA, fresh off of its acquisition of an 88 percent stake in Business Insider.

Chief Executive Officer Ben Lerer will stay on at Thrillist, with a new head to be appointed to run the Jackthreads business.

Lerer refused to disclose to Re/Code what the split on the funding was, but said the combined valuations are higher than what it received when it raised its last round of $13 million in 2013 on what was believed to be a $150 million valuation.

Founded in 2004, Thrillist provides male-focused content that is claimed to be “obsessed with everything that’s worth caring about in food, drink, and travel.”

Part BuzzFeed and part city-based guide, the core Thrillist site provides a bit of everything it thinks might cater to men, including event guides, eating reviews, though to more click-bait style viral content and more.

Having started in New York, the site has city sections covering over 30 cities, including non-American cities Berlin, London, and Toronto.

Numbers are strong, with Thrillist said to reach 15 million monthly unique visitors on its core site, and over 80 million a month across its digital, social and mobile platforms.

Jackthreads, like its now previous parent company, focuses on men, although in this case the site sells daily drops of new curated collections from brands, limited-run collaborations and private label products; of note Jackthreads has been independent before, and was acquired by Thrillist in 2010.

Value proposition

One part of the split seems to have come about due to the difficulty in valuing a media company that has a large e-commerce component, along with one investor seeking an exit.

“At a certain point, these businesses have each become living, breathing creatures, and to share a source of food is not the most productive,” Lerer told Re/Code. “We’re ahead of our time, or at least for people who write big checks..Where I was hopeful it would be a situation where one plus one would equal three, investors were just looking at what the two were worth separately and adding them up.”

The other component driving the split is said to be original (as in 2005) investor Pilot Group seeking an exit after 10 years, which a split allowed it to do by selling its shares in the company to incoming investors.

A 10-year-old media company with an e-commerce operation was always going to be a difficult thing to value, and the bonus of being able to cash out an investor who wanted out is definitely a positive; perhaps the surprising thing is that Thrillist didn’t make this decision sooner.

The new round also adds fire to current mixed market for media properties, where some companies are being funded, or acquired for arguably insane amounts, whereas others struggle.

Prior to the new funding the previously combined Thrillist had raised at least $26 million in its previous rounds (a figure for its 2005 round was not available).

The transaction is due to be finalized in October.

Image credit: screenshot/ Thrillist