Hot off the press release presses: tech blog GigaOm has acquired paidContent (and parent company ContentNext) from The Guardian. Rumors of the acquisition were first reported by Peter Kafka at AllThingsD.
Wrote GigaOm founder Om Malik in a blog post:
” The ethos of paidContent and our company are in sync. GigaOM’s core belief is that as connectivity becomes ubiquitous, it changes everything from society to business to we the people. paidContent from the very beginning has been built on the idea that connectedness is and will change media. It makes perfect sense for us to team up. Since then, Paul and his team worked tirelessly to make it happen.”
The two sites have seemingly had had a sympatico mission, hosting conferences and serving up analysis and thought leadership in addition to breaking news. While neither company disclosed a price, the deal was most likely done for less than the $30 million that The Guardian reportedly paid for paidContent, which actually turned out to be $6 million to $12 million.
GigaOm has a total of $14.3 million in funding from True Ventures, Jon Callaghan and others. ContentNext was founded in 2002 by media luminary Rafat Ali and funded for an undisclosed amount from Greycroft Partners in 2006.