So its confirmed now. As has been reported previously, Buzzfeed has today confirmed a $200 Million ‘strategic investment’ from NBCUniversal, taking the media giant’s valuation to over $1.5 Billion. NBCUniversal on the other hand, has been busy putting money in media companies, with a similar $200 Million investment into VOX Media last week.
Apart from this strategic investment, Buzzfeed says that the two companies will also collaborate on a number of other media fronts. “BuzzFeed and NBCUniversal will be great strategic partners and we both have a lot to offer the other,” said Kenneth Lerer, BuzzFeed’s Executive Chairman. “We look forward to collaborating on television content, movies, the Olympics, and joint partnerships with ad agencies and brands.”
Apart from this, Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti, in a memo to employees, also announced several other strategic expansions, including the opening of Buzzfeed Japan,
We’ve also signed an agreement with Yahoo! JAPAN to launch BuzzFeed Japan as a joint venture based in Tokyo. Yahoo! JAPAN is the leading digital media company in a huge market, reaching almost all of the online population in Japan. Partnering with them allows us to grow much more quickly in Japan than if we had launched on our own.
Buzzfeed has perhaps been one of the fastest growing new-age media companies in the present era. It reaches a whopping 200 Million uniques per month with over 1.5 Billion video views till date.
However, even with that many eyeballs, revenues for Buzzfeed haven’t really matched its spending. As per leaked Gawker documents, Buzzfeed had set aside an editorial budget of $10.4 million and a net profit of $2.7 million for the first six months of 2014.
Buzzfeed had raised a $50 Million Series A round from Andreessen Horowitz a year ago.
