Digital Media’s SPAC Scramble Heats Up

Digital media’s great SPAC scramble of 2021 is under way. Today we published new details about BuzzFeed’s plans to go public via a SPAC merger, including its discussions about simultaneously merging with lifestyle publisher Complex Networks. Meanwhile, Vice Media is preparing to pitch investors on its SPAC deal this week, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. And Bustle, whose CEO Bryan Goldberg has been more vocal than his counterparts at other companies about the appeal of SPACs, is still planning a SPAC deal this year, Axios reported today. 

Every company contemplating a SPAC merger has been affected by the cold front that has moved across that market over the past couple of months. Digital media firms are particularly vulnerable to that chill, thanks to the years of generally anemic growth most have suffered. (Whether being a no-growth business is as off-putting to SPAC investors as a no-revenue business—like the Lidar startups also scouting for deals—is a question for another day.)