Friday, July 11, 2008
News Flash: The Guardian News & Media has Purchased paidContent
Wow, exciting news for our good friend Rafat Ali who has reportedly agreed to sell paidContent to Britain's Guardian Media Group for $30 million.
The Guardian's Jemima Kiss just published the news of the acquisition and here is her "thought piece." However, terms have not been disclosed and the company declined to provide them to Beet.TV. Rafat posts the news himself, also does not reveal terms.
First news of the deal broke a few hours ago in a report by Kara Swisher. Soon after, that eagle-eyed, prolific tweeter Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb wrote he confirmed the news via a tweet from a Guardian editor!
Kara reported that the deal is worth $30 million. This would be in line with some recent sales by small blog/events companies including Mediabistro which sold to Jupiter for around $25 million and ArsTechnica which sold to Conde Nast for around the same price.
Here's a link to Compete which compares web traffic among these three properties. We understand that a big area for revenue for paidContent is its emerging conference business.
Above is an interview I did one year ago, Rafat told me about expansions and his views on a prospects of a sale. He told me then, "we'll probably exit at some point in time."
The parent company of paidContent is ContentNext.
paidContent VC Funding and Sale: It's a Family Affair
paidContent recieved venture funding from Greycroft Partners, the firm headed by Alan Patricof. The company has been sold by Mesa, the new boutique investment bank headed by his son Mark Paticof.
Mark also sold ArsTechnica to CondeNast. Just yesterday, Mesa sold Menupages to New York magazine.
I've republished below my interview with Alan. He speaks about Rafat and the prospects for vertical publishing. Must be a big party day with the Patricof family! Congrats.
-- Andy Ples