Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to reports on the evening of February 7, Beijing time, Vox Media, the parent company of technology website The Verge, is raising $100 million (currently about 679 million yuan) from Penske Media, the parent company of magazines such as Variety, according to reports.

As part of the investment deal, Penske Media will own about 20 per cent of Vox Media, making it its largest shareholder, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

The valuation of this round is significantly lower than that of Vox Media's last round of financing in 2015. At the time, NBC Global invested $200m in Vox Media at a valuation of about $1 billion.

Of course, NBC Global's investment in Vox Media coincided with the digital publishing boom, when companies such as BuzzFeed, Vice Media and the HuffPost raised money at extremely high valuations.

Valuations of traditional digital media companies have fallen sharply in recent years as platforms such as Google, Meta and Amazon occupy a growing share of the digital media market.

For the deal, Jim Bankoff, CEO of Vox Media, said in a letter to employees that the two companies would continue to operate independently and remain independent in editing and business. Of course, the two companies will cooperate in favorable places.

Jay Penske, CEO and co-founder of Penske Media, said in a statement that he had long admired Vox Media's "world-class" journalists. "the alliance between Penske Media and Vox Media will further consolidate their position as leaders in modern media and take advantage of large-scale new opportunities," Penske said. .

In addition to raising money, Vox Media also met with other media companies to discuss potential acquisitions or sales of some of its media assets, according to two people familiar with the matter. Vox Media may use the money to make acquisitions to expand its business, according to a person familiar with the matter. Vox Media has no plans to raise more money, the person familiar with the matter said.

At the same time, Penske Media is also actively looking for merger and acquisition targets. Last month, Penske Media Eldridge, a subsidiary of Penske Media, acquired Dick Clark Productions (Dick Clark Production).

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