The eight-year-old B2B newsletter publisher Industry Dive says it will have grown like-for-like revenue in 2020 from $29m to some $40m, with pro forma revenues (including acquisitions) reaching a total of $60m. During the year, Industry Dive also launched two new digital publications Transport Dive and Cybersecurity Dive.
The company, which is believed to have EBITDA margins of 30%, currently employs 240 people.
The euphoric disclosures come as the company completes the acquisition of CFO. com from events organiser Argyll Executive Forum for a price believed to be some $7-9m. The 35-year-old magazine brand is believed to have revenue of some $5m, primarily from digital advertising and content marketing.
Industry Dive CEO Sean Griffey told Business Insider that the key appeal of CFO is its in-depth features and analysis, and database of 300k US finance professionals across its website, magazine and newsletters.
CFO. com averaged 87k monthly uniques during September-November 2020 – up 18% over the prior year. according to Similarweb. During the same period, Industry Dive’s CFO Dive had 18,000 monthly uniques – up 13%.
CFO started in 1985 as a monthly print magazine. The Economist Group acquired it in 1985 and sold it to private equity in 2010. Six years later, it was acquired by Argyle, which will retain CFO’s in-person events business. While the deal marks Industry Dive’s first move into print, it is believed the company will soon decide to concentrate on digital.
Industry Dive plans to launch a new Payments Dive early in 2021, to complement its banking, retail, finance verticals.
The acquisition is the second made by Industry Dive since Falfurrias Capital Partners last year acquired a majority of the fast-growing B2B publisher in a deal valued at some $70m, 10 x EBITDA in 2018. In August, it acquired the NewsCred content marketing platform which signalled the company’s international ambitions and posed the question of whether IndustryDive would take its successful B2B newsletter formula to the UK.
