NBCUniversal Close To Investing $200 Million In BuzzFeed

According to Recode, NBCUniversal is attracted to BuzzFeed's fast-growing digital content, which is in a better position itself to target younger audiences.

A $200 million investment in BuzzFeed implies a $1.7 billion for the digital media firm and would mark NBCUniversal's second investment in the firm, said Bloomberg.

However, the investment also comes at a time when some investors aren't as positive on the digital media space as they have been in the past. For instance, BuzzFeed's 2015 revenue goal fell short of its own targets, and reports have surfaced, which the company's chairman Ken Lerer denied, that the company slashed its 2016 objectives by half.

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Recode, citing people familiar with the company, added that BuzzFeed's financial shortfall are due to its "distributed" media strategy of finding large audiences beyond its own websites that don't translate to advertising dollars following.

Last year, Comcast and its TV and film unit invested $200 million in BuzzFeed, which implies its $400 million total stake is one of the biggest investments by any traditional old-school media company in new-age digital content.

NBCUniversal also invested $200 million in VoxMedia, the parent company of popular digital content including Eater, The Verge and Recode.

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