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Jul 28, 2020 - Economy

Scoop: Industry Dive's first big acquisition

headshot
Two people sit on chairs under a logo that says "Industry Dive"

Photo: Brian Tucker/Industry Dive

Industry Dive, a business journalism company, is acquiring the marketing arm of NewsCred, a global technology company, executives tell Axios.

Why it matters: Industry Dive is a niche B2B media company, but it's long been profitable, and it's pretty sizable.

Catch up quick: The deal includes all of the studio's assets, including its 100+ client roster and 40 employees from NewsCred's Content Marketing studio.

  • The acquisition adds 40 new people to the company's 175 current employees and it expands its presence from D.C. to New York, London and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Details: The acquisition will help Industry Dive sell custom ads to its audience of more than 11 million business decision-makers across 20 niche industries, which includes topics like banking, bio, pharmaceuticals, construction, education, grocery, marketing, retail, smart cities, transport, waste and others.

  • Industry Dive's growth strategy has always been to take business topics that already have sizable audiences and advertising potential and launch a digital, ad-supported newsletter and other products around each.
  • It determines which verticals to invest in through several criteria, like whether a particular field has high turnover, heavy government regulation or if there's high capital spend within the industry, particularly on technology.
  • "We think each vertical can be worth $10 million–$20 million just in digital newsletter ad spend," says Industry Dive co-founder and CEO Sean Griffey.
  • Retail is the company's largest vertical, and waste is growing fast.

The big picture: Last year, Industry Dive sold a majority stake to Charlotte, North Carolina-based private equity firm Falfurrias Capital Partners, seven years after its founding in Washington, D.C.

  • At the time, its revenue was roughly $30 million, according to sources.
  • Today, Griffey says revenue is up significantly and that the business is highly profitable.
  • "Q2 was our best quarter in company history from both a revenue and profit standpoint," says Griffey.
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