Red Ventures is an American media company, which owns and operates brands such as

Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History Early years Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 1972, they embarked ...

CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

ZDNet ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication. His ...

The Points Guy The Points Guy (TPG) is an American travel website and blog that produces sponsored news and stories on travel, on means of accumulating and using airline points and miles, on politics and credit cards, and in particular credit card reviews ...

Healthline Healthline Media, Inc. is an American website and provider of health information headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1999, relaunched in 2006, and established as a standalone entity in January 2016. Accuracy There ar ...

and Bankrate. Red Ventures focuses on sites that dispense news, advice, and reviews. The company's corporate headquarters is located in

Indian Land, South Carolina Indian Land is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community in the northernmost part (the "Panhandle") of Lancaster County, South Carolina, Lancaster County, South Carolina, United States. It lies east of Fort Mill, South Carolina, Fort Mill, ...

, a suburb of

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

History

Red Ventures was formed on September 29, 1999, in Fort Mill, South Carolina by Ric Elias and Dan Feldstein. Before its 2020 acquisitions, the company has grown into an international presence with more than 100 brands, 3,000 employees, and operations in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. In 2015, the company got a $250 million investment from

Silver Lake Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

. That same year, it doubled the size of its headquarters and bought postal services company Imagitas from

Pitney Bowes Pitney Bowes Inc. is an American technology company most known for its postage meters and other mailing equipment and services, and with expansions into e-commerce, software, and other technologies. The company was founded by Arthur Pitney, who ...

. Red Ventures acquired Bankrate Inc. for $1.24 billion in cash in a deal announced July 3, 2017. On September 14, 2020, Red Ventures agreed to purchase the CNET Media Group from ViacomCBS for $500 million. On December 1, 2020, Red Ventures bought Lonely Planet from Tennessee-based NC2 Media. In 2021, the company had 4,500 employees and 751 million readers per month.

Timeline

* 1999: Red F, the precursor to Red Ventures, was founded."Staying in Red brings new life"
Charlotte Business Journal, November 2, 2007 * 2003: Red Ventures is launched, beginning with DIRECTV (DirectstarTV brand). * 2008: Red Ventures acquires Modern Consumer“Red Ventures Acquires Lead Generation Firm Modern Consumer”
Direct Magazine, June 23, 2008 * 2010:

General Atlantic General Atlantic (also known as "GA") is an American growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for global growth companies, headquartered in New York, United States. The firm was founded in 1980 as the captive investment team for ...

announces investment in Red Ventures, and Managing Director

Anton Levy Anton Levy (born October 18, 1974) is an American businessman. He is Co-President, Managing Director and head of the Global Internet and Technology sector at General Atlantic, a private equity firm based in New York City, where he has worked sin ...

joins the board of directors. * 2012: Red Ventures acquires www.homeinsurance.com and with it a satellite office in

Wilmington, North Carolina Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...

. * 2015: Silver Lake announces $250M strategic investment in Red Ventures. * 2015: May - Red Ventures acquire
Imagitas
(now MyMove) from

for $310M. * 2016: Red Ventures acquires Soda.com * 2017: Red Ventures acquires Choose Energy * 2017: Red Ventures acquires Allconnect * 2017: Red Ventures acquires Bankrate, Inc. (including

) * 2019: Red Ventures acquires HigherEducation.com * 2019: Red Ventures acquires

* 2020: Acquisition of

Media Group (including

Chowhound Chowhound (or chowhound.com) was a food website owned by Red Ventures. It ceased operations on March 28, 2022. History Chowhound was a popular online food community founded by jazz trombonist and food writer Jim Leff and Bob Okumura in 1997, k ...

) from

ViacomCBS Paramount Global (doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. It ...

for $500 million. * 2020: Acquisition of

from NC2 Media for an undisclosed amount. *2021: Acquisition of Healthgrades.com from Mercury Healthcare for an undisclosed amount. *2022: Closure of Chowhound. *2022: Red Ventures partners with

UnitedHealth Group UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is an American multinational managed healthcare and insurance company based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. It offers health care products and insurance services. UnitedHealth Group is the world's seventh largest ...

's Optum Health to launch RVO Health. *2022: Fandom, Inc. acquired the sites

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...

GameFAQs GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...

Giant Bomb ''Giant Bomb'' is an American video game website and wiki that includes personality-driven gaming videos, commentary, news, and reviews, created by former ''GameSpot'' editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis. The website was voted by '' Time' ...

, Cord Cutters News and Comic Vine from Red Ventures.

References

External links

* {{Authority control American companies established in 2000 Privately held companies based in South Carolina Marketing companies established in 2000 Marketing companies of the United States Mass media companies established in 2000 Mass media companies of the United States Companies based in Charlotte, North Carolina Silver Lake (investment firm) companies Lancaster County, South Carolina