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After selling the viral social video site “Jukin Media” in 2021, founders Mike Skogmo and John Skogmo, along with their colleague Anton Reut, took time to think and travel, and came up with their next company. Their answer was “LOST iN”, a travel media site based on existing publishers and focused on revolutionizing the travel media business with content from well-known online travel creators.
The company raised $4 million in seed funding, a significant amount in the recent tough environment for venture capital, as rising interest rates have led investors to put their money into lower-risk investments. LOST iN targets young, online-savvy travelers who want a mix of adventure and comfort, and a “premium economy” opportunity at a reasonable price.
LostIn founders (l-r) Mike Skogmo, Jon Skogmo and Anton Reut.
(Courtesy of Lost iN)
By acquiring 10-year-old travel publisher LOST iN, the new owners are gaining guidebooks for 25 countries that are distributed in about 50. The restructured company also plans to partner with established travel-focused creators to produce a range of additional materials to further enhance its offerings.
“At Jukin, we learned how to build and monetize audiences at scale, and we'll use those learnings to focus on travel, a category that is ripe for disruption and attracts affluent and highly engaged consumers,” said LOST iN CEO John Skogmo, who is also Jukin founder and CEO. “The acquisition of LOST iN's guidebook business gives us a strong direct-to-consumer element to combine with our ad-supported business built around digital video, and we will continue to diversify around events, memberships and other initiatives that add value to our communities.”
Brother Mike Skogmo will again serve as chief marketing officer, as he did at Jukin Co. Root will become chief operating officer.
Reut said that despite its growth and massive scale, the travel industry “continues to struggle to find ways to connect with digitally native audiences. LOST iN is a solution for travel enthusiasts to get fun and informative travel content, and for advertisers looking to reach the modern traveler. It's a win-win for audiences, creators and advertisers.”
Based in Culver City, California, Jukin was one of the pioneers in the Los Angeles online media world. The company took a different approach than other now-defunct LA video services like Machinima and Maker Studios. Rather than relying on the work of a set of related video creators, Jukin focused on quickly finding social video clips across the web as they went viral, licensing them, and pushing the clips to its own sites, like Fail Army.
Once the clips were licensed (Jukin had 70,000 in its library), the company pushed their virality further, but also repackaged the clips for use in traditional TV shows, branded content, etc. The company also produced several of its own clip shows, effectively updating the old America's Funniest Home Videos format for the new media age.
The company was sold to Trusted Media Brands, the parent company of Reader's Digest, for an undisclosed sum reportedly in nine figures.
The new company's $4 million seed round was led by MaC Venture Capital, with investment from BDMI, Pitbull Ventures, Hawke Media founder Erik Huberman, Kevin Gould and Matthew Rutler of Kombo Ventures.
Other notable contemporaries who have been long-time members of the Los Angeles media scene included Pocket.Watch founder Chris Williams, Fullscreen founder George Strompolos, David Alpert, founder of Skybound Entertainment (producers of The Walking Dead and Invincible), and pioneering tech and entertainment entrepreneur and executive Richard Wolpert, former head of Disney Online.
Marlon Nichols, managing general partner at MaC, noted the success and experience the three former Jukin executives bring to LOST iN and the expectation that they will achieve similar success in the more focused travel media space.
“Their last venture, Jukin Media, was a truly innovative business, and now they're poised to revamp a fragmented travel media space where trusted voices are scarce and thousands of creators and influencers are creating their own content,” Nichols said. “The team has the expertise to uncover and partner with talented creators to become an essential part of travel enthusiasts' media diet.”
