User:Aeastvol/BuzzFeed

Funding
Buzzfeed raised $3.5 million in 2008 through Hearst Ventures and Softbank. In 2011 Buzzfeed ran more than 100 social media campaigns, resulting in triple revenue from 2010. In January 2012 Buzzfeed announced that it had earned $15.5 million in funding from New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Ventures, Hearst Interactive Media, Softbank, and RRE Capital to expand the site's content. Later, in October of 2012, Buzzfeed ran sponsored content for the Obama administration leading to an increase in ad revenue. Buzzfeed attracted companies to advertise through them by offering native advertising instead of banner ads. The site attempts to create viral content on social media for companies. By January 2013 Buzzfeed announced that New Enterprise Associates had raised $19.3 million. The company was reported to be profitable in 2013.

In 2014 it was reported that Buzzfeed had passed $100 million in revenue. Andreessen Horowitz invested $50 million in Buzzfeed, valuing the company at $850 million. Buzzfeed secured $200 million in funding from NBCUniversal in 2015. Buzzfeed announced plans following the deal with NBCUniversal to hire more investigative journalists, expand its foreign presence to include India, Germany, Mexico, and Japan, and expand its video unit, renaming it "Buzzfeed Motion Pictures." In 2016 Buzzfeed announced that it would invest more money into its food-themed division, Tasty, and its digital video division. NBCUniversal invested an additional $200 million in 2016 after the two companies had collaborated on many projects, namely the Rio Olympics. The companies planned to work together to market themselves to advertisers.

After laying off 100 employees in 2017, Buzzfeed laid off 200 of its employees in 2019 to help facilitate growth despite raising revenue by 15% from 2017 to 2018. Facebook began funding two Buzzfeed News shows in 2019 for Watch.