 Good evening, I'm Dylan Byers.
Welcome back to In the Room, my biweekly private email on the intrigue and inside story behind what’s really going on in the media industry.
In today's email, I'm breaking some news about Ben Smith and Justin Smith's forthcoming global media venture. Plus, don't miss my latest reporting on the dawn of the Chris Licht era at CNN, on the Puck website.
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 The Smiths’ forthcoming global media venture is beginning to coalesce as Ben and Justin close in on their first tranche of funding and poach their first high-profile executive. Plus, some new investor dish. Two months after the news that they were leaving their jobs, Justin Smith and Ben Smith are closing in on about $30 million in initial funding for their new global media venture and are likely to announce their investors in a matter of weeks, sources familiar with the matter tell me. Those investors will be a mix of personal and institutional investors who will have equity stakes in the business. An Axios report earlier this week identified a few bold faced names who had been approached for “Project Coda,” including Bob Iger and Laurene Powell Jobs. According to my sources, conversations with Iger didn’t go anywhere and Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective passed on the opportunity, citing conflicts with The Atlantic. (David Bradley, the former publisher of The Atlantic, does intend to invest, according to sources familiar.)
Meanwhile, I can report that the Smiths have made their first notable hire...
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