Exclusive: Minute Media acquires VideoVerse in its largest deal ever
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Minute Media, the parent company to sports and entertainment sites like The Players' Tribune and Mental Floss, has acquired VideoVerse, a software platform that fuels real-time sports highlights for content companies, Minute Media CEO and founder Asaf Peled told Axios.
Why it matters: The deal marks the largest of the seven acquisitions completed in Minute Media's 14-year history. It's a signal of the company's push to double down on sports tech and video as its primary focus area.
Catch up quick: Minute Media is one of the largest privately owned digital publishing and tech companies in the country.
- The company was valued at over $1 billion last year after raising tens of millions of dollars from several investors, including HSBC and BlackRock.
- Minute Media started as a publishing platform by acquiring sites such as FanSided, The Players' Tribune and Mental Floss. It later built ad tech tools to serve those sites and others. In 2024, it won the 10-year licensing rights to publish Sports Illustrated's print and digital editorial brands.
Between the lines: In recent years, the company has expanded to become a sports technology platform for content owners — including its own sites — as well as sports rights holders, leagues, teams and marketers.
- That effort was supercharged by its acquisition of STN Video last year in a deal valued at over $150 million. At the time, that was Minute Media's largest-ever transaction.
- Peled declined to disclose financial deal terms for the VideoVerse acquisition, but confirmed it is the company's largest ever.
- California-based VideoVerse has a little under 300 employees, all of whom will join Minute Media as part of the transaction. That will bring Minute Media's total workforce to over 800.
Zoom in: Minute Media will now get access to VideoVerse's AI-driven video-clipping product Magnifi, which makes it possible for publishers, leagues, and others to automatically detect key sports moments and create and distribute real-time short-term videos with those highlights.
- The deal will help Minute Media better serve its existing clients, including major U.S. sports leagues, rights holders and publishers, while giving it access to VideoVerse's global leagues and rights holder clients.
- Peled says VideoVerse's global scope will help it scale the reach and monetization efforts of Minute Media's existing partners.
What's next: Asked if the company is considering a possible IPO, Peled says Minute Media is "happy being private for now."
- While the company has brought on outside partners to fundraise acquisitions, Peled says the firm has solid access to capital, so it's not in a rush to IPO right now.
