Puck at $250M, Semafor at $330M and The Free Press at $150M vs. BuzzFeed sold 86% below peak… Semafor priced its first round in its first profitable year, with half of revenue from events
Puck, the paid-newsletter publisher, is in advanced talks with RedBird Capital Partners on an investment valuing it at about $250 million. Reuters reported the talks on August 26 and Puck confirmed them the same day.
Semafor raised $30 million in January at a $330 million post-money valuation, weeks after closing its first profitable year on $40 million of revenue.
The Free Press was acquired by Paramount Skydance last October for $150 million. In its September 4 media newsletter, Axios reported that venture capital is returning to media startups, with interest confined to outlets built on premium subscriptions and events.
Axios's media and journalism industry section, home to the Media Trends newsletter and the deal reporting this article draws on. Photo: Axios screenshot
In the 2010s digital publishers layered advertising revenue on traffic supplied by Facebook and Google. Investors, Axios wrote on May 19, took social distribution, search traffic and scale-based audience growth as evidence that these companies were the next generation of media giants.
When platform traffic fell and advertising budgets tightened, buyers re-priced them on profitability, cash flow and durability, and sale prices came in 86–94% below peak. Venture funding stopped at that point.
The outlets funded this year sell directly to readers. Subscription fees, conference tickets and advertising in member newsletters make up the bulk of revenue, and valuations rest on paying readers and subscription and event income rather than traffic. Fire sales of the first generation and high-multiple investments in the second are proceeding in the same year.