Vox Media is considering several offers that would take it public through a SPAC, two people familiar with the business said. Vice Media, previously on the hook for big payments to one of its investors, the private equity giant TPG, is circling a plan to go public, according to three people with knowledge of Vice Media. BuzzFeed bought HuffPost and said it would acquire another publisher, Complex, as part of its plan to go public through a SPAC transaction of its own. Group Nine added PopSugar to a stable that included The Dodo and Thrillist and created a special purpose acquisition company (or SPAC) with the aim of going public. Vox Media bought New York Media, the parent company of New York magazine and its clutch of websites. In an effort to regain their stature and compete against the much larger Facebook and Google, which take huge chunks of online ad revenue, BuzzFeed, Vox Media, Vice Media and Group Nine have gotten bigger in recent years through mergers and acquisitions. A number of leading web journalists have decamped for these century-old institutions, while investors are demanding returns on the money they plowed into the digital companies when they were all the rage. The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have flourished, thanks to an emphasis on digital journalism and a strategy of charging readers for online access. The exuberance was based on what seemed like a surefire business model: Give readers web-native content free of charge and watch the money roll in from advertisers eager to connect with a young audience. Valuations shot skyward, and the companies’ founders did victory laps with each round of funding. Investors poured billions into Vox Media, Vice Media, Group Nine and other upstart companies that employed writers fully at ease with the new digital culture and the increased velocity of online journalism. Not so long ago, when newspapers and magazines were going out of business all across the country, BuzzFeed and a few other fast-growing web publications seemed like the future of the news business.

Vox media company