Business Insider has been acquired by German digital media publisher Axel Springer in a deal that values the news website at $442 million.
Axel Springer paid $343 million to own 88 percent of Business Insider, adding to the 9 percent it already owned from previous funding rounds. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, also a previous investor, will own the remaining 3 percent.
Originally known as Silicon Alley Insider, Business Insider was founded in 2007 by Dwight Merriman, Kevin Ryan, and CEO Henry Blodget, a former equity research analyst who was later banned from the securities industry for publicly supporting tech stocks. The site, known for its attention-grabbing headlines and aggregation of content from other news sources, attracts 76 million unique monthly page views and employs more than 325 people — half of whom are journalists. It had raised just north of $55 million.
“We have tremendous respect for Axel Springer’s commitment to independent journalism and its global vision for the future,” Blodget said in a statement. “It is a pleasure and privilege to join forces with such a smart, forward-thinking team. We look forward to working together to build a major global news organization for the digital century.”
Thanks, everyone! Very kind. So grateful to our readers and clients and so proud of our team. Axel Springer an amazing company.
— Henry Blodget (@hblodget) September 29, 2015
Blodget will continue as CEO of Business Insider.
As for Bezos, the Amazon CEO invested $5 million in Business Insider in 2013 via his investment arm Bezos Expeditions. He paid $250 million to buy the Washington Post a few months after that.
Axel Springer, meanwhile, is a well-known media company in Europe, owning publications like German tabloid Blid. It tried to acquire the Financial Times this summer but was outbid by Japan-based Nikkei.
