Cooking.com Bags $16m in Funding, Inks AOL Deal

Computergram International, April 13, 1999

Cooking.com Inc, an online cooking products retailer and community, has raised $16m in second-round financing from both existing investors and a new group led by Vanguard Venture Partners. The Santa Monica, California-based company also announced that it has handed over some of that cash to sign a two-year, multimillion-dollar deal with America Online Inc that will see it become a programming partner in the food & cooking web center on AOL.com.

Under the agreement, Cooking.com will be a key content partner for recipes, information and products on the AOL property. The company already had a deal with AOL for placement on the AOL shopping channel. Other contributors to the round of funding included Tredegar Investments, Forrest, Binkley and Brown, Times Mirror Co, and the Phillips Smith Specialty Group. Existing investors Idealab Capital Partners, DynaFund Ventures, and Moore Capital also participated.