Media company NBCUniversal is nearing a $250m investment in online media company Buzzfeed and a similarly large investment in another online media site, Vox Media, Re/code reported yesterday.
The Buzzfeed investment would value the company at $1.5bn, a sizeable leap from the $850m valuation at which venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz invested $50m in August 2014.
Media and entertainment group The Walt Disney Company reportedly entered talks to acquire Buzzfeed in April 2014 but was unwilling to meet its $1bn valuation.
Founded in 2008, Buzzfeed runs an online media site targeted towards young adults that combines reportage with listicle articles. It has reportedly managed to leverage native advertising successfully enough that its projected revenue in 2015 is set to reach $250m, a big jump from the $100m it posted last year.
The company has raised about $96m in total, including $19.3m from media company Hearst, telecommunications firm SoftBank, which invested through its SoftBank Capital unit, RRE Ventures and Lerer Ventures in a 2013 round that valued it at $200m.
SoftBank and Hearst had been investors in Buzzfeed since its $3.5m series A round in 2008, subsequently participating in an $8m series B round in 2010 and a $15.5m round in 2012.
Some of Buzzfeed’s earlier investors, which also include Founder Collective, New Enterprise Associates and various angel investors, would exit the company as part of the NBCUniversal stake purchase, sources told Re/code, though the identity of the investors was not revealed.
Vox Media, which was founded in 2004, runs a diversified network of online news sites. Re/code did not reveal how much NBCUniversal was set to invest in Vox but did state that the funding would value the company at about $850m
The investment would follow the $46.5m in funding Vox received from General Atlantic in December 2014, secured at a $380m valuation.
Vox has raised almost $125m in funding from cable and telecoms service Comcast, which is also the parent company of NBCUniversal, as well as Accel Partners, Allen & Co, Khosla Ventures and Ted Leonsis.
Comcast reportedly entered talks to acquire Vox in May this year, shortly after technology finance news site Re/code was itself acquired by Vox Media in a deal that allowed Re/code backer NBCUniversal to exit, picking up Vox stock in the process.
Although NBCUniversal has not officially commented on reports of either of the investments, it may be looking to provide the funding in a bid to capture younger viewers, and could perhaps provide a way for Buzzfeed and Vox to expand their output in the video space.