Digital news company Mashable is to launch operations in Asia as part of an aggressive international growth plan fuelled by $31m in venture funding the business has raised in the past 16 months.
The opening of a Singapore-based office, led by Victoria Ho, formerly of the social network app Migme, follows Mashable’s expansion into the UK and Australia in 2014. The company does not disclose revenue or profit figures, but said it expects 10 per cent of its revenue to come from outside the US this year and is also planning to launch in India.
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“When you look where mobile and social media is growing round the world, Southeast Asia is one of the places it’s expanding the quickest. There are tailwinds there for Mashable, as a little more than half our traffic is coming via social and more than half of visits are on mobile,” said Adam Ostrow, chief strategy officer.
Mashable is among a crop of online media sites benefiting from the rapid rise of social media to deliver content and advertisers willing to pay for sponsored content. The past year has seen an influx of investment into groups including BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Vox Media, which say they are better placed to reach younger audiences than traditional media groups.
The New York-based company was founded in Scotland in 2005, and has carried out two funding rounds in quick succession, with participation from Updata Partners, Tribune Media’s Tribune Digital Ventures and the venture arm of Time Warner.
Global revenue is expected to rise 45 per cent this year, in line with 2014’s growth. Half of its audience comes from outside the US, with the UK, Australia and Canada accounting for the largest international readerships.
Amid the flood of money washing across digital media, however, the long-term viability of the new business models underpinning such companies is uncertain.
In March, GigaOm, a technology-focused news site, declared bankruptcy, despite having raised $8m last year from investors including Reed Elsevier, the publishing group.
Gawker, one of the original viral news sites, has struggled to contend with the rise of competitors such as BuzzFeed, which last year raised $50m from Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, at a valuation of $850m. The company has reshuffled its management with founder Nick Denton vowing to break its reliance on social media-driven traffic.
Like BuzzFeed, Mashable has looked to increase its readership by using social networks such as Facebook and messaging apps including Snapchat.
But this new distribution model, which even traditional publishers are starting to adopt with the advent of news services from Facebook and Apple, raises questions for companies that have traditionally relied on pushing traffic to their own websites.
“One thing I do think will change over time is how you measure the influence and reach of a media company,” said Mr Ostrow. “We’re starting to think about not just how many unique visitors you get to your website and app, but how many social impressions we have a month.”
He believes that broader definition of an audience is appealing to advertisers. As it prepares to launch in Asia, Mr Ostrow said the company is talking to popular social networks and messaging apps in the region, such as Weibo, Line and WeChat.
It is also counting on marketing interest from companies in the region, such as Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker, that want to build larger brands.
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