[UPDATE / 12:30 p.m ] : BuzzFeed has today confirmed the second $200 million investment from NBCUniversal into the company. This extension in their partnership will enable both companies to work together on ad sales, producing more short-form video content for advertisers and making it viral across social media. It will also expand on the currently standing content partnership between NBC’s Today and BuzzFeed’s food network Tasty.
Though previous reports suggested that the company will raise fresh funds at a flat valuation but BuzzFeed has managed to bump it up by a measly 200 million. This means that the current funding round values the media house at $1.7 billion.
Commenting on the fresh fund-raising round, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti says,
NBCUniversal has been a tremendous partner this past year and we can’t wait to do more with them. Our collaboration has allowed us to focus on our respective strengths, learn from each other, and serve our combined audience better with compelling news, entertainment, and advertising offerings that neither company could do on our own. The investment allows us to remain a fully independent company but have access to and resources from the strongest and best media company there is.
PREVIOUSLY:
BuzzFeed, the well-known news and entertainment platform, has authorized the sale of shares worth $200 million for its Series G funding round. This development was first spotted in a Delaware regulatory filing obtained by CB Insights. The said shares have been sold for $45.04 each, which is the exactly the same as its previous funding round. This means that the company has raised at a flat valuation of $1.5 billion.
This report falls in line and most likely point towards previous reports which mentioned that BuzzFeed was gearing up to raise fresh capital from its existing and largest investor — NBCUniversal. Though the regulatory filing doesn’t exactly confirm the funding round, it guarantees a handful of deliverables to investors who’ve picked up Class G preferred stock.
For long, Buzzfeed has been considered the hottest media candidate for an initial public offering. And the filing adds to the expectation by outlining guidelines to protect its late-stage investors during the IPO. The statement mentions that late-stage investors will be protected against any loss if the stock market price of the company is below what they’ve paid for. It also adds that the protection lasts for a period of two years and three months. In addition, the New York-based media company mentions that the value of the investors’ investment will begin to decline once the protection period reaches its final date.
Prior to this, the media company picked up a similar, $200 million, investment from its existing backer NBCUniversal. The company has since ventured into and focused extensively on growing its video content library — also available exclusively via its own video platform. The company had back then also added that it will look forward to collaborating with its investor on television content, movies, the Olympics, and joint partnerships with ad agencies and brands.
Buzzfeed, which was once a prime acquisition target for Walt Disney, has managed to secure about $250 million in six rounds of funding. These saw participation from marquee investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Founder Collective, SoftBank Capital, SV Angel, General Atlantic, among a couple others.
