BuzzFeed just announced that it has raised $200 million from NBCUniversal.
If the news sounds a little familiar, that’s because Vox Media announced a similar deal with NBCUniversal last week. At the time, Re/code (now owned by Vox) reported that BuzzFeed had received an investment of the same size, at a valuation of $1.5 billion.
As with the Vox deal, BuzzFeed and NBCUniversal say they’ll be looking at possibilities for strategic partnerships.
In a memo to employees, founder and CEO Jonah Peretti (pictured above) also highlighted a number of other partnerships, including the deal with Yahoo Japan:
All these deals were structured to assure BuzzFeed’s continued editorial and creative independence. Equally important, the investment from NBCU and our rapidly growing revenue assures our financial independence, allowing us to grow and invest without pressure to chase short-term revenue or rush an IPO.
BuzzFeed raised a $50 million round from Andreessen Horowitz a year ago. The company says it’s now reaching more than 200 million unique visitors each month and 1.5 billion video views.
Gawker recently published some leaked documents about BuzzFeed’s financials, showing an editorial budget of $10.4 million and a net profit of $2.7 million for the first six months of 2014.
