Healthline does $14 million venture round

Participants in the new round include Investor Growth Capital (IGC) of Sweden, GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund,  and Reed Elsevier Ventures.

The round represents a strong media industry endorsement of Healthline's business model, which involves providing its Web database of health information to media sites like Yahoo, AOL and the AARP, based on ad revenue.

It's also not venture capital per se, noted CEO West Shell in a press statement. ""We doubled the business and achieved profitability last year, reaching almost 100 million consumers a month across our network," he said.

The round will let Healthline continue to invest ahead of its growth, and continue to expand regardless of economic conditions.

Regular readers of ZDNet Healthcare will note that Mr. Shell has been a commenter here, as well as an interview subject, as his company has sought to consolidate the health information space.

Full disclosure. I suggested to a spokesperson that when Shell becomes a bazillionaire he might consider buying me a drink. Given the nature of his business that should probably be a pomegranate juice.