It’s tough out there to be a digital media company. Meanwhile, The New York Times paid a cool $550 million to buy up The Athletic, and more recently, G/O Media bought business journalism site Quartz in April. Instead, Vox completed a merger with Group Nine Media in February, and it was reported earlier this month Vice was planning to put itself up for sale. Following BuzzFeed’s poor post-debut performance, other media companies seem to have decided that sticking to consolidating and gaining scale privately was the better move.īoth Vox and Vice scrapped their own IPO plans. Many other digital media companies, including Vox Media and Vice Media, were looking to BuzzFeed’s public debut as a sign of whether there was a real appetite among investors for digital media. And when there’s that much uncertainty, companies tighten their belts and spend less on things like advertising. On top of all that, geopolitical risks caused by a war in Ukraine, sky-high inflation and supply-chain woes have injected a serious amount of uncertainty in the business world. If digital advertising behemoths such as YouTube are having trouble, companies like BuzzFeed are definitely feeling the heat. So tough in fact that even a company like Google’s YouTube reported a serious deceleration in revenue during Q1. However, not only has there been a serious slowdown in SPAC mania, but the macroeconomic environment is tough, to say the least. If there was ever a time to go public through a SPAC, it was 2021, and Peretti jumped on that opportunity to take BuzzFeed public just before the new year. listed SPAC IPOs in 2021 and 248 in 2020, according to financial analytics platform Dealogic. A SPAC is also known as a “blank-check company” and is used to raise money through an IPO with the goal of either acquiring or merging with another company. Either way, things really aren’t going the way CEO Jonah Peretti thought they would.īuzzFeed emerged as a public company after a merger with special purpose acquisition company - or SPAC - 890 Fifth Ave. ![]() Merida Merger Corp I (NASDAQ:MCMJ) entered into a definitive agreement to combine with cannabis enterprise Leafly on August 9.Some may say it’s bad timing, and others may say the market just doesn’t have an appetite for a pure-play digital media company. The announcement follows Apple’s recent update to its guidelines, which now permits in-app purchasing from licensed cannabis dispensaries, increasing access and removing a significant barrier between the legal cannabis market and consumers. Leafly, one of the world’s leading cannabis discovery marketplaces and resources, today announced a new update to Leafly’s iOS app that will enable iPhone and iPad users to place pickup orders for cannabis in legal state markets. Leafly Launches In-App Cannabis Ordering for iPhone Users Leading tech-powered media company BuzzFeed announced that Joan Amble has joined its Board of Directors as Audit Chair.Īmble, who previously served as Executive Vice President, Finance, and Comptroller for American Express, will bring decades of finance, accounting and public company experience to BuzzFeed’s Board of Directors and help BuzzFeed navigate a new period of growth as a public company. Joan Amble Joins BuzzFeed’s Board of Directors as Audit Chair (NASDAQ:VII), but existing investors like James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and Sixth Street Partners have agreed to invest in the company to help it achieve profitability now.Īs part of the fundraising, Vice’s co-founder, Shane Smith, agreed to give up his voting control. The company was hoping to raise money through a merger with a SPAC funded by 7GC & Co. Vice Media has ended talks to go public with a SPAC for the time being and raised $85 million from existing investors, according to a Tuesday report in The Information. ![]() Vice Media Raises $85 Million as Co-Founder Shane Smith Abandons SPAC Talks and Voting Control US-listed Magnum Opus (NYSE:OPA) agreed last week to acquire the American publisher of Forbes magazine in a deal that valued the company at US$630 million. That has since shifted as investors look for companies set to benefit from a post-Covid-19 recovery and place a greater focus on valuations, he said. There was a “mismatch” in market dynamics to begin the year, with investors focused on growth stories and placing little focus on valuations, said Jonathan Lin, who also serves as CEO of Magnum Opus Acquisition, a Hong Kong-based SPAC.
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