Bustle picks up Elite Daily for social and video strength

Elite Dailys staff
Digital media company Bustle has acquired Elite Daily, a publisher and viral video site focused on millennial consumers, from the Daily Mail for a mix of cash and stock. The sale comes less than two years after the Daily Mail purchased the site for $40m (£32m).

Following the acquisition, Bustle, which largely caters to young women, will rename its parent company to Bustle Digital Group. The company, which also owns Romper, a site aimed at young mothers, now boasts a combined readership of around 80m unique monthly visitors.

In late 2016, the Daily Mail wrote down its own acquisition of Elite Daily, citing poor performance and growth from the site, but Bustle Digital Group clearly still thinks the property is a valuable purchase, particularly because of its video and social media efforts.

Bustle has seen its own user growth become stagnant over the past few years, growing by just 5m monthly users over the past 18 months, approximately, but it has seen massive growth on other platforms like Instagram, where it makes ‘significant revenue’ from Stories, and grew its audience by 600 per cent in 2016 alone.

“Elite Daily is beloved by millions of readers, most of whom are young women, and their highly engaged audience will add further depth to Bustle Digital Group’s portfolio,” said Bryan Goldberg, CEO and founder of Bustle Digital Group. “We see tremendous opportunity to build off of Elite Daily’s strong capabilities in video, social and native advertising. We are thrilled to welcome them to the BDG family.”