# Advance

> Advance is a VC fund in New York backing Advertising and Internet. See 13 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: New York, United States
- Total investments: 13
- Last investment: Apr 2021
- Lead investor: 23%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/advance-publications-inc.
- Website: https://www.advance.com/

Advance is a private, family-owned business that owns, operates, and invests in companies spanning media, entertainment, technology, communications, education, and other promising growth sectors.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Advance. Shizune tracks 9 team members at Advance. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/advance-91f0?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Advertising | 4 | 31% |
| Internet | 3 | 23% |
| Software | 3 | 23% |
| Education | 3 | 23% |
| Video | 2 | 15% |

38 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series C | 3 | 23% |
| Series D | 3 | 23% |
| Series A | 2 | 15% |
| Series B | 2 | 15% |
| Series E | 2 | 15% |

6 stages tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Donald Newhouse | President | 0 | — |
| Michael Fricklas | Chief Legal Officer and Secretary | 1 | — |
| Nina Lawrence | Vice President | 0 | — |
| Peter D. Weinberger | Chief Innovation Officer, Advance Local | 0 | — |
| Randy Siegel | President of Local Digital Strategy | 0 | — |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| HawkEye 360 | HawkEye 360 is a data analytics company that develops space-based radio frequency mapping. The company operates a commercial satellite constellation to identify, process, and geolocate a broad set of RF signals. Its products include maritime domain awareness and spectrum mapping and monitoring; our customers include a wide range of commercial,government, and international entities.It was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia. | $55M | Series C | Apr 12, 2021 |  |
| EVERFI | EVERFI operates a network for online education in off-curriculum, but highly valuable content areas such as financial literacy, student loan management, digital literacy, substance abuse prevention, and other key life skills for the 21st-century student. The company's software-as-a-service platform is designed to provide a highly engagingexperience for students and features the latest technology and instructional design, including rich media, high-definition video, 3D simulations, and social networking. EVERFI partners with more than 7,000 schools, colleges, and universities in all 50 states. | $40M | Series C | Jul 27, 2016 |  |
| Above Average | Above Average is A producer and distributor of premium short-form comedy. Guided by a creator-first philosophy, Above Average pairs the industry's top digital entertainers, celebrities, and comedians with the rising stars of tomorrow. Above Average is home to original web series such as 7 Minutes in Heaven, Alec Baldwin's Love Ride, andSound Advice with Vanessa Bayer. It has also collaborated with brands on original comedy, like Pepsi's Camp Halftime starring Donald Faison, Marriott's It Pays To Book Direct campaign with Grace Helbig, Hudson Valley Ballers with Lexus' L/Studios, and more. Above Average's sports property, The Kicker, is the premier online sports comedy destination creatively led by its editor-in-chief Bryan Tucker, co-head writer of Saturday Night Live. Above Average was founded by Broadway Video in 2012. | $15M | Series B | Jul 20, 2016 |  |
| General Assembly | General Assembly provides education and career transformation, specializing in today’s most in-demand skills. The leading source for training, staffing, and career transitions, we foster a flourishing community of professionals pursuing careers they love. It was founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York, United States. | $70M | Series D | Sep 30, 2015 |  |
| Unified | Unified helps marketers make informed and impactful decisions with the industry’s only business intelligence platform purposely designed for social advertising. With experience collecting and enriching over 1 billion dollars of social investment data, Unified is passionate about providing Fortune 2000 brands and agencies greater transparency intotheir many teams, tools and strategies. The Unified Platform and service teams are specifically built to ensure data quality, optimize investments and answer critical business questions. Unified has offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. | $30M | Series B | Sep 10, 2015 |  |
| Rent the Runway | Rent the Runway is an online e-commerce website that allows women to rent designer apparel and accessories. It is transforming the way modern women get dressed - and in turn, disrupting the $1.7 trillion fashion industry - through the concept of renting over buying clothing.Founded in 2009 by Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, RTR pioneered the‘closet in the cloud’ and believes that women everywhere will soon have a subscription to fashion, making renting an indispensable utility while also empowering them to feel like their best selves every day. RTR carries hundreds of thousands of pieces of apparel and accessories by 550+ designer partners with options for work, weekends, and special occasions.The company has built proprietary technology, one-of-a-kind reverse logistics operation, and retail stores of the future that bring the dream closet to life. RTR has raised more than $200M from top-tier investors, has more than eight million users, and prides itself on the entrepreneurial, dream-big culture at the company which employs 1,200 people -- 70% of whom are women and 71% are minority/non-white.In 2015, the co-founders launched the Rent the Runway Foundation, supporting tens of thousands of female entrepreneurs in building and scaling their businesses. | $60M | Series D | Dec 19, 2014 |  |
| Gigya | Gigya's Customer Identity Management Platform helps companies build better customer relationships by turning unknown visitors into known, loyal and engaged customers. With Gigya’s technology, businesses increase registrations and identify customers across devices, consolidate data into rich customer profiles, and provide better service,products and experiences by integrating data into marketing and service applications.Gigya's platform was designed from the ground up for social identities, mobile devices, consumer privacy and modern marketing. Gigya provides developers with the APIs they need to easily build and maintain secure and scalable registration, authentication, profile management, data analytics and third-party integrations.More than 700 of the world’s leading businesses such as Fox, Forbes, and Verizon rely on Gigya to build identity-driven relationships and to provide scalable, secure Customer Identity Management. | $25M | Series E | Sep 19, 2013 |  |
| Visible Measures | Visible Measures is a provider of independent third-party measurement solutions for Internet video publishers and advertisers. Their services help users measure video content consumption and viral distribution. It was established in 2005 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. | $21.5M | Series E | Aug 14, 2012 |  |
| Gigya | Gigya's Customer Identity Management Platform helps companies build better customer relationships by turning unknown visitors into known, loyal and engaged customers. With Gigya’s technology, businesses increase registrations and identify customers across devices, consolidate data into rich customer profiles, and provide better service,products and experiences by integrating data into marketing and service applications.Gigya's platform was designed from the ground up for social identities, mobile devices, consumer privacy and modern marketing. Gigya provides developers with the APIs they need to easily build and maintain secure and scalable registration, authentication, profile management, data analytics and third-party integrations.More than 700 of the world’s leading businesses such as Fox, Forbes, and Verizon rely on Gigya to build identity-driven relationships and to provide scalable, secure Customer Identity Management. | $15.3M | Series D | Jun 11, 2012 |  |
| Unified | Unified helps marketers make informed and impactful decisions with the industry’s only business intelligence platform purposely designed for social advertising. With experience collecting and enriching over 1 billion dollars of social investment data, Unified is passionate about providing Fortune 2000 brands and agencies greater transparency intotheir many teams, tools and strategies. The Unified Platform and service teams are specifically built to ensure data quality, optimize investments and answer critical business questions. Unified has offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. | $14M | Series A | Jun 07, 2012 |  |

10 of 13 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [DAG Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dag-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Benchmark](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/benchmark) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Mayfield Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/mayfield-fund) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Razor's Edge Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/razors-edge-fund) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [ACME Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/acme-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Adage Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/adage-capital-management) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Sequoia Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sequoia-capital) — VC Fund
- [New Enterprise Associates](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/new-enterprise-associates) — VC Fund
- [Bessemer Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bessemer-venture-partners) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does Advance invest in?

Advance invests primarily in Advertising, Internet and Software startups, most often at Series C and Series D stage. Most of the 13 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact Advance?

Public channels for Advance include LinkedIn and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### Who are the partners at Advance?

The team at Advance includes Donald Newhouse (President), Michael Fricklas (Chief Legal Officer and Secretary) and Nina Lawrence (Vice President), among 9 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co