Bustle Digital Group has acquired Mic, the struggling digital-media company that laid off most of its employees Thursday.
A rep for Bustle said in an emailed statement, “I can confirm that Bustle Digital Group has acquired Mic. We have no further comment.” A spokeswoman for Mic declined to comment.
Bustle was offering less than $10 million to acquire Mic, according to a report by the Information. Following its most recent funding last year, Mic had a valuation in the “mid hundreds of millions” of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mic’s sale talks with Bustle were previously reported by Recode.
Bustle, whose sites include Bustle, Romper, Elite Daily, and the Zoe Report, is headed by founder and CEO Bryan Goldberg. He bought the remaining assets of Gawker Media in July in an auction and recently hired Amanda Hale as the new publisher of Gawker, with plans to relaunch the site in 2019.
It’s unclear how many Mic employees will be joining Bustle. Mic last year had reported having about 165 employees, but the majority of the staff were let go on Thursday morning. Mic publisher Cory Haik also on Thursday announced her exit from the company.
Mic was founded in 2011 by CEO Chris Altchek and editor-at-large Jake Horowitz, aiming to deliver digital journalism for younger audiences. Like other digital-focused publishers, Mic has been challenged to grow revenue over the past year from online advertising and other sources.
In July, Mic launched a twice-weekly newsmagazine show on Facebook Watch, “Mic Dispatch,” funded by Facebook as part of its broader journalism on its platform. Facebook recently decided to not renew the show, after Mic had received about $2 million in funding from Facebook for the initial six-month run, a source familiar with the pact said.
Mic raised around $60 million in funding total from investors including WarnerMedia Investments (formerly Time Warner Investments), Lightspeed Venture Partners, WPP, Kyu Collective, Axel Springer, Advancit Capital and Lerer Hippeau Ventures.