Federated Media Publishing, the hot top-down (or bottom-up or whatever the new hot way to do things is) website network, closed its Series A funding round this week. Members like TechCrunch and GigaOM (and even FM Pub newbie Tailrank) pile on congratulations.

But, er, one thing — why does a no-inventory ad-run startup need funding? It has ads coming in, shouldn't that be the revenue? GigaOM blogger Om Malik tells Valleywag, "I think is mostly for future growth, adding more bloggers and scaling the infrastructure."

Or, if we transcribe FM founder John Battelle's thoughts: "I have friends, they have money, I wanna play with it."

Financing News: FM Gains a New Partner [FM Publishing]

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