Entertainment platform Fandom announced today its acquisition of seven entertainment and gaming brands from media company Red Ventures, including online publications Comic Vine, Cord Cutters News, GameFAQs, GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic and TV Guide.
Sources close to Fandom told TechCrunch that the deal cost somewhere in the mid-fifties — so around $55 million.
Founded in 2004 by Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales and entrepreneur Angela Beesley, Fandom today offers a wiki hosting service and fan platform providing 40 million pages of content and 250,000 wiki communities to inform and entertain fans about their favorite video games, movies and TV series.
Today’s announcement is notable as it greatly expands Fandom’s offerings to now include reviews, ratings and news.
“We’re thrilled to add these powerful, authoritative brands into the Fandom platform, which will expand our business capabilities and provide immersive content for our partners, advertisers and fans. The trusted insights, ratings and content they provide will make us a one-stop shop for fans across their entertainment and gaming journey,” said Perkins Miller, CEO of Fandom, in a statement. Miller had become CEO in February 2019, as the company rebranded from its former name, Wikia, and began to update its core platform technology.
Acquiring the seven brands will also help to expand Fandom’s gamer audience, which is one of its largest with 115 million video game fans, 17 million pages of content and 100,000 gaming communities, per Fandom’s 2022 State of Gaming report.
Also, the ownership of these digital assets will help Fandom increase its monthly user base to 350 million, making it the 14th ad-supported site in the U.S. The addition of monthly users keeps the company on track to reach its goal of becoming the No. 1 fan platform in the world.
With a recent slowdown in advertising, the acquisition couldn’t have come at a better time. The company noted in its announcement that the deal allows Fandom to “super-serve” its advertising partners as well as help power its data platform and gaming e-commerce business.
“In addition to creating exceptional fan experiences, these platforms will add to our FanDNA data offering, giving us sentiment and intent signals that will help improve the consumer experience as well as make our commerce and advertising businesses more impactful,” Miller added.
Fandom’s deal with Red Ventures joins various other purchases recently made by the company, such as the 2021 acquisition of Focus Multimedia Ltd., the parent company of Fanatical, an e-commerce retailer that sells video games, e-books and software.
In 2019, the company bought Curse Media, a network of gaming sites, from Twitch.
Online movie magazine ScreenJunkies was purchased by Fandom in 2018.
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