Today, BuzzFeed announced it raised a $200 million round from NBCUniversal. Again.
The company raised a round of the same size from NBCUniversal last year, marking the beginning of the two organizations’ strategic collaboration on programming and advertising.
According to a BuzzFeed blog post, the new investment will allow the companies to grow their advertising sales relationship. BuzzFeed plans to collaborate with NBCUniversal to create and promote native ads for NBCUniversal’s Content Studio as well as create new digital consumer experiences for NBCUniversal content, and NBCUniversal will sell ads on BuzzFeed.
“NBCUniversal has been a tremendous partner this past year and we can’t wait to do more with them. Our collaboration has allowed us to focus on our respective strengths, learn from each other, and serve our combined audience better with compelling news, entertainment, and advertising offerings that neither company could do on our own,” said Jonah Peretti BuzzFeed CEO and founder in a statement. “The investment allows us to remain a fully independent company but have access to and resources from the strongest and best media company there is.”
Today’s news follows BuzzFeed’s August restructuring, when the company split itself into separate news and entertainment departments in order to bring video to the core of its platform.
Earlier today, it was also reported that BuzzFeed quietly acquired Scroll last month, marking the company’s foray into e-commerce. Scroll was founded by former Quirky CEO Ben Kaufman, who under his new company, built Thrice.com and Homesick Candles, which sell emoji-themed pool floats and scented candles that smell like U.S. states, respectively.
For the past three weeks, Kaufman has been leading a team at BuzzFeed called ‘BuzzFeed Product Lab,” which is planning on experimenting will all types of commerce over the upcoming months. For example, BuzzFeed will reveal its ‘Tasty Cookbook,’ this week, which will allow customers to purchase a custom-printed and customizable collection of recipes from BuzzFeed’s wildly popular food vertical, Tasty.
BuzzFeed Product Lab is also turning its office, situated near BuzzFeed’s headquarters in the Flatiron district, into a physical brick-and-mortar retail store to test commerce concepts. The store — dubbed ‘Homesick for the Holidays’ — opened today.
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