BuzzFeed To Get Additional $200 Million Investment From NBC Universal: Report

Comcast Corp.’s TV and movie arm NBCUniversal is in talks over investing an additional $200 million into new media giant BuzzFeed, a year after putting in the same amount into the enterprise, according to a report.

BuzzFeed, which split its editorial operations into an entertainment and a news group earlier this year, has a valuation of around $1.7 billion, Recode reported. There has been no significant change in this following the previous investment that had brought BuzzFeed's post-money valuation to $1.5 billion.

While both parties refused to comment on the new deal, Recode quoted BuzzFeed representative Carole Robinson as saying, “We have a great relationship with NBCU. We’re always talking about broadening the relationship as part of our plan to grow as an independent company.”

When the older deal was announced last year, NBCU chief Steve Burke hailed BuzzFeed as a “global company that harmonizes technology, data and superior editorial abilities to create and share content in innovative ways.”

However, the new media pioneer missed its 2015 revenue goals — attributed to a move toward “distributed” media strategy, Recode reported. This caused BuzzFeed to pull down its goals for 2016 and now the company is on track to meet the newer forecast, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.

As of now, over half of BuzzFeed’s ad revenue comes from video content and the percentage is set to spike within two years with video representing 75 percent of the revenue, according to a New York Times report.

Last year NBCUniversal also invested $200 million in Vox Media — which includes sites like Verge, SB Nation, Curbed and Recode — almost at the same time as the previous BuzzFeed investment. Walt Disney Co. has put $400 million directly in Vice Media, while Discovery Communications recently invested $100 million into other new media ventures.