Bustle Digital Group (BDG), a digital media company that owns popular online publications including the women-focused Bustle and tech site The Outline, is exploring a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and has hired the investment bank Farvahar Partners to help it seek a deal, Reuters reports.

Over the past year, the use of SPACs for mergers that’ll see the merging company raise cash and become publicly-traded have become popular. Most of the companies merging with SPACs are usually technology companies, with only a few from the digital media sector.

Now, Bustle Digital seems to be looking to be one of the few digital media companies that’ll take the SPAC route and go public. Another of that kind is the digital media company Group Nine, which recently formed its own SPAC. Group Nine owns popular brands like Thrillist and NowThis.

Bustle is led by Bryan Goldberg, a serial media entrepreneur who founded and sold a previous popular company, the sports site Bleacher Report, to Turner Broadcasting in 2012 in a $200 million deal.

After selling Bleacher Report, Goldberg left to found Bustle Digital Group in 2012, starting with its eponymous women-focused site Bustle and then adding several other brands under an umbrella company, Bustle Digital Group.

Bustle Digital Group is funded by roughly $80 million in venture funding from investors including Social Capital, Time Warner, General Catalyst, and GGV Capital.

For a SPAC deal, Bustle is targeting a valuation of at least $600 million, including debt, Reuters reports. The company is said to be profitable at an operating level, with revenues of just shy of $100 million in 2020.

Photo credit: Red kopiko, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Share this...

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Linkedin

Whatsapp

Email

Print