G/O Media announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Quartz (qz.com), the digitally native business news organization ranked number one for readership among global executives between ages 25-45. The acquisition brings together G/O Media’s portfolio of brands that include The A.V. Club, Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Kotaku, Lifehacker, The Root, and The Onion with Quartz’s award-winning journalism and global audience.
With a mission to make business better,™ Quartz specializes in business news and analysis for purpose-driven professionals. Its global newsroom helps readers discover new industries, new markets, and new ways of doing business that are the most sustainable, innovative, and inclusive. Quartz’s offerings include the Quartz Daily Brief, its industry-leading morning newsletter; the Quartz Obsession email and podcast; Quartz at Work, on the modern workplace; and Quartz Africa and Quartz India, which focus on innovation in each region. Quartz has been widely praised for its innovative journalism, product design, and advertising, and has won many of journalism’s highest honors since launching in 2012, most recently picking up two of SABEW’s Best in Business Awards earlier this month.
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“Acquiring Quartz adds to our already unparalleled portfolio of sites that are beloved by readers and embraced by advertisers,” said G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller. “The digital business news space is an area ripe for investment and synergies with our other G/O Media sites. Quartz’s commitment to quality and mission-driven journalism embodies the values espoused in all of our brands, and I look forward to working with the talented Quartz team to grow the business to new levels of success.”
Zach Seward, a co-founder and the current CEO of Quartz, will join G/O Media as general manager and editor in chief of Quartz after the deal becomes official. Katherine Bell, Quartz’s editor in chief since January 2020, will continue as an advisor to Quartz.
“Quartz’s progressive business journalism and our vital coverage of the global economy will now reach even more people by joining the G/O Media network,” said Seward. “We’ll be able to serve readers in new ways and continue to grow the advertising and membership revenue that supports Quartz’s vital work. I am particularly proud that there are no layoffs connected to the acquisition, nor planned once we integrate. This is a plan for long-term growth.”
Quartz will become part of G/O Media’s profitable portfolio of sites that lead in industry engagement, audience, reach, and ad performance metrics. Numerous synergistic opportunities with the young audiences of G/O Media’s other sites, analytics, and infrastructure improvements will help grow Quartz’s traffic, memberships, and advertising revenue. This acquisition comes at the three-year anniversary of the formation of G/O Media. Quartz was founded in 2012 under Atlantic Media, which sold Quartz in 2018 to Uzabase, a publicly-traded Japanese media company. Seward and Bell took Quartz private two years later in a management buyout.
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