BuzzFeed and Vice Media’s Next Pivot: “Last Resort” Efforts to Go Public
BY ALEX WEPRIN, J. CLARA CHAN | HollywoodReporter.Com Troy Warren for CNT As private funding sources run thin, a group of digital media companies are finding a "surprising lifeline" in blank-check companies raising cash for IPOs and acquisitions. During the venture capital-funded digital media boom of the 2010s, startup founders often voiced world-conquering ambitions. In 2014, Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith bragged: “We won’t be the next CNN or ESPN or MTV. We’ll be 10 times that size.” A year later, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti informed staff that they were building “a global, cross-platform network for news and entertainment, … something that has never existed before.”…
