Google’s not the only company throwing ogles of cash at its YouTube machine.
The video-sharing giant, owned by Google and now perpetually on a steady shift towards company-funded original programming, is reportedly in line to receive a big financial boost from Time Warner Investments, which plans to commit $40 million to Los Angeles’ Maker Studios, a wildly successful startup that specializes in creating and promoting content for the YouTube medium.
Specifics are currently hazy, though All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka reports that the handoff could happen some time in the next three weeks.
“I don’t know the other players in the round, and they [may] not be set yet,” he wrote. “I also don’t have a pre-money valuation for the Los Angeles-based company [Maker], but it should be at least $150 million, which would put the total value for the company in the $200 million range by the time the deal is done.”
The $40 million investment goes hand-in-hand with Google’s focus in original YouTube programming. The company threw $100 million towards its 100 original channels last November and recently announced that it plans to re-up with a new round of investments for 30 to 40 percent of those channels this month.
Maker Studios, recently in the news thanks to a highly publicized split with YouTube megastar Ray William Johnson, received three of those 100 original channels when the first round of investments was announced last year.
The studio is currently the third-most-popular on YouTube, and handles production for such programs as Lloyd Ahlquist’s Epic Rap Battles of History, Timothy DeLaGhetto’s Traphik, and the Shaytards’ daily video diary.
According to Kafka, the company will use some of the incoming cash to build out its direct sales force, though it will also have the opportunity to invest some of that money into new original programming.
News of the investment from Time Warner comes just days after it was rumored that online media giant Yahoo was considering acquiring Maker Studios.
Photo via Maker Studios/Facebook
