by Todd Longwell

For Sean Beckner and his company ViralNova, it’s a case of good things come to those who wait. For a more than a year, he had been spurning investors looking to buy in to the digital publisher, which specializes in highly-shareable videos and listicles with titles like “What This Widower Was Handed After Dinner Left Me in Tears” and “Do You Ever Wonder If Horses Love Big Bouncy Balls.” Then, after a seven-month courtship, he finally sold the company to Zealot Networks this week in a deal combining cash, stock and earn-out that is reportedly worth $100 million.

It’s been a quick, steep climb for ViralNova. The site was launched in May 2013 by Ohio-based web designer and SEO consultant Scott DeLong. By November of that year, it was claiming more than 100 million unique monthly visits, putting it in league with top viral content purveyors BuzzFeed and Upworthy, which respectively reported 130 million and 87 million unique visits during the same period.

There were rumors that DeLong was looking for a big cash-out. Instead, he brought on Beckner as the majority partner in March 2014. With Beckner as CEO, ViralNova moved its operations to Midtown Manhattan and expanded its staff from two to twenty-four, while repeatedly turning down offers from venture capitalists and other interested parties.

It was a risky move, given the volatility of the viral content space, where fortunes can change with a tweak of Facebook’s algorithms. But it paid off.

Beckner spoke with VideoInk about the future of ViralNova and why he chose to sell to Zealot, the cash-rich company co-founded by former Maker Studios CEO Danny Zappin.

Read the interview…

This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.