Houlihan Lokey Advises Whistle Sports

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Whistle Sports, the entertainment media brand that creates, curates, and distributes content for young audiences, has raised over $28 million in funding.

The Series D equity round in progress is led by Aser, a global investment company founded by Andrea Radrizzani. The round includes investments from Liberty Media, Emil Capital, Jeffrey Katzenberg's WndrCo, and others. Whistle Sports plans to use the proceeds of the investment in part to expand its catalog of free and premium original content with brand partners and creators, including Dude Perfect—the team behind the third-most-subscribed-to creator YouTube channel—DevinSuperTramp, and The F2, among others, on both OTT and Whistle Sports distribution platforms.

Whistle Sports launched in 2014 and is now the leader in the sports lifestyle segment globally, targeting young post-millennials. The company's aggregate social audience of over 450 million subscribers, followers, and fans viewed videos across the 2,000 channels in the Whistle Sports network 1.7 billion times last month. With a library of over 560,000 videos, Whistle Sports surpasses all other U.S. sports social media accounts in video views and audience numbers. Whistle Sports has a rapidly growing revenue stream with a 52% year-over-year growth rate and 132% compound annual growth rate.

The capital raised augments previous funding rounds for a total of nearly $100 million, which comprises investments by NBC Sports, Sky Sports, Tegna, and U.K.-based venture capital firm Beringea.