A recent report claims that Mashable has been sold to Ziff Davis for $50 million.
According to this report, Ziff Davis, a subsidiary of J2 Global Inc (NASDAQ:JCOM), is buying Mashable to give itself a strong digital brand. The company has been looking for such an acquisition for some time and tried to buy Gawker Media back in 2016. It is also the publisher of PC Magazine.
If the reports about the deal are true, then Ziff Davis paid much less than expected for Mashable. The digital media company was valued between $200 million and $250 million last year. It recently sought another round of venture funding in August, but failed.
Both Mashable and Ziff Davis are refusing to comment on reports of the sale. However, one inside source says that staff at the digital media brand are on edge about the news. Evidently, they haven’t been told anything about the sale by their higher ups, reports Business Insider.
Mashable got its start back in 2005 and quickly grew due to its viral nature. Unfortunately for the company, this growth has stalled and this resulted at a shift of focus. This included firing 30 employees last year and moving more toward video content.
While the report claims that Mashable’s switch to video was good for its revenue at first, it wasn’t enough to keep the company going. Now it appears that the digital brand will be posting a loss for 2017. Reports say that the company started looking for a buyer a few months ago, TechCrunch notes.
JCOM stock was up slightly as of noon Friday.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
