Animal blog The Dodo.com, Inc. has raised $11.5 million Series B in a round led by Discovery Communications that included Softbank, SBNY, Berggruen Holdings, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Greycroft Partners and NBA commissioner David Stern.

Founded in 2014, The Dodo claims to be building a digital brand for everyone who loves animals and cares about their wellbeing.

The site says it has as its goal “to serve up emotionally and visually compelling, highly shareable animal-related stories and videos to as many people as possible to help make caring about animals a viral cause.”

“We want our readers to fall in love with animals, have fun and be entertained while they’re doing it, and feel empowered to help animals in need,” the about page continues. “The Dodo is for everyone who loves animals and wants to spread that love and make the world a better place for them.”

Numbers for The Dodo are strong, with MediaPost reporting that the site is did 15 million page views in September along with nearly 100 million video views per month (primarily on Facebook) with most of the traffic coming from mobile devices.

The site’s audience also skews younger with 55 percent of all visitors being between the age of 18 and 34.

Nuts

While on paper the numbers are decent enough, it’s important to actually assess what the site in and of itself actually is.

It’s a blog about animals.

Sure, the posts are cute and the content is viral, but The Dodo makes Buzzfeed look like a legitimate source of original reporting by comparison and it pains me deeply to write those words.

There’s seemingly little to no original content on the site with nearly all the content stolen from other sites, in particular, Reddit, very much like Buzzfeed in its early days.

For the bonus, the site is also said to be making no making money, or to be precise Business Insider notes “The Dodo doesn’t generate much revenue,” so a site that posts stolen pictures of animals from other sites and makes next to nothing raises $11.5 million….

It’s not just nuts, it’s f**king insane.

The back story not surprisingly comes down to not what the site offers but who runs it, with founder Izzie Lerer being the daughter of Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer; Arianna Huffington is joining the company as an adviser as part of the round as well confirming further that the funding is nothing more than spare change from friends of friends.

All that said, the round shouldn’t really come as a great surprise to anyone who has been following the online media funding landscape this year, let alone the broader venture capital industry who as the second great tech bubble reaches its zenith is throwing money around like a drunken sailor downs whiskey; it should be noted that eventually you have to deal with the hangover however.

Including the new round The Dodo has raised an insane $18.1 million to-date.

It’s not clear from reports what the site intends to use the new money on.

Image via The Dodo