NBCUniversal close to investing in BuzzFeed: source

Reuters

Published Jul 30, 2015 04:46PM ET

NBCUniversal close to investing in BuzzFeed: source

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comcast Corp's (O:CMCSA) NBCUniversal film and television unit is close to making an investment in online publisher BuzzFeed and is in talks to raise its stake in Vox Media, a person with knowledge of both sets of discussions said on Thursday.

The company is negotiating to inject $250 million into BuzzFeed, according to the Re/code tech news website, which first reported that NBCUniversal was poised to invest in the digital media companies. That would value BuzzFeed at about $1.5 billion, Re/code said.

The discussions are more advanced with BuzzFeed than with Vox, according to the person with knowledge of the talks. Re/code said NBCUniversal's potential investment in Vox would value the digital company at $850 million. Comcast already owns a minority stake in Vox.

Spokespeople for NBCU, BuzzFeed and Vox declined to comment.