Get to Know Mel Magazine’s New Owners, Recurrent Ventures

Since late 2018, the private equity firm North Equity has been on a buying spree, methodically acquiring more than a dozen distressed publications in an attempt to build a lucrative media empire by investing in promising, if downtrodden properties. This week, the budding conglomerate added another publisher to its stable, the formerly defunct Mel Magazine, which had gone dark in March while it searched for a buyer after its financial sponsor, Unilever’s Dollar Shave Club, withdrew its support. On Tuesday, Recurrent Ventures, the media arm of North Equity, announced that Mel would act as the anchor of its new lifestyle vertical. “We have been in stealth mode, but Mel was the beginning of a number of exciting announcements we have planned for the next few months,” Matt Young, the CRO of Recurrent Ventures, told Adweek. Mel Magazine to Launch Paid Newsletters The firm’s recent acquisitions reflect a growing trend in the media world: consolidation. As publishers seek to add scale to bulk up their advertising capabilities, joining forces has become a quick fix for digital media figures like BuzzFeed, Vox and Vice Media. For Recurrent Ventures, armed with capital and amidst a rising demand for digital advertising, buying and building their way into the media landscape is the logical path. Their timing, said Scott Bender, a partner and global head of client strategy at Prohaska Consulting, could not be better. “On the heels of the pandemic, some of the smaller publishers are looking for homes, and some of the larger ones are weighing those acquisitions strategically,” Bender said. “I’m not going to say bargains, but they’re seeing opportunities.” A portfolio of home and garden, military, automotive, outdoor and speciality Recurrent Ventures made its first acquisition in December 2018, when it purchased the auto-oriented publisher The Drive, before adding another automotive brand, Car Bibles, in September 2019. It acquired BobVila.com in January 2020, Kitchenistic in June 2020 and the military-oriented Task & Purpose in September 2020. In October 2020, Recurrent Ventures acquired seven publications from Bonnier Corporation: Popular Science, Popular Photography, Saveur, Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, Better You and Interesting Things. In January it acquired domino, and this week it brought Mel Magazine aboard. In total, Recurrent Ventures has 14 active publications, and it uses a proprietary engineering platform, owned by North Equity, as the foundation for its publishers' tech. CEO Lance Johnson said that Recurrent plans to make further acquisitions in the future. Investment and proprietary tech boost publisher margins While private equity has become somewhat of a four-letter word in the media world, the field is not monolithic. Recurrent Ventures, in particular, has a track record of investing in its media acquisitions, expanding their headcount and using its custom technology to better support them. Of its 14 acquisitions, only five have been under Recurrent Ventures management for close to a year: The Drive, Car Bibles, BobVila.com, Kitchenistic and Task & Purpose. Once the firm acquires a property, it migrates its content to Empire, a process that can take up to six months, meaning it requires time for newly acquired publishers to begin showing results. Once a publication has been migrated, Recurrent’s custom ad network helps it boost margins, generating revenue more effectively in order to reinvest those funds into its sites. Of the four publications mature enough to track, The Drive and BobVila.com have seen the biggest gains. In terms of traffic, The Drive has grown its audience by 165% in two years, from 3.9 million monthly users in April 2019 to 10.3 million in June. BobVila.com averaged 3 million unique viewers when it was acquired in January 2020, and it now averages 10 million monthly visitors, according to the publisher and verified by data from Comscore. Task & Purpose increased its traffic by 12% month-over-month in May. [George and Iozzio] played a major role in making me feel like Recurrent was the right place for us,” Schollmeyer said. “And, more importantly, that they weren’t going to try to change us. Recurrent has also expanded headcount at its media properties. BobVila.com had four staff when it was acquired, and it now has more than 40. The Drive has increased its staff from 10 to around 50, Johnson said. Three of the four properties––The Drive, BobVila.com and Task & Purpose––have all at least doubled their revenues, though Johnson declined to offer financial specifics. The firm also declined to say how much total investment they had put into the publishers. Brands in the Recurrent portfolio monetize primarily through programmatic advertising, though they also use affiliate links, direct advertising, licensing and events. The company plans to experiment with subscriptions and tiered offerings in the future. The key difference between Recurrent and other private equity firms is that Recurrent aims to boost its properties’ revenue by investing in them and growing their teams, Johnson said. “We are not, like the typical reputation of private equity, cutting people or cutting costs,” Johnson said. “In fact we are adding costs and adding personnel. And the growth we have seen is all organic.” Recurrent’s habit of investing in the brands it acquires led a number of its editorial staff to vouch for the firm when Mel editor in chief Josh Schollmeyer was considering it as a home for Mel. In particular, he was swayed by the input of Patrick George and Corinne Iozzio, the editorial director for Recurrent’s auto and military sites and the editor in chief of Popular Science, respectively. The two helped convince Schollmeyer that Recurrent, which is hiring back or filling all of its 18 editorial positions, would be a good home for Mel, “[George and Iozzio] played a major role in making me feel like Recurrent was the right place for us,” Schollmeyer said. “And, more importantly, that they weren’t going to try to change us.”

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What to Know About Mel Magazine’s New Owners, Recurrent Ventures

The private equity firm has snapped up 14 media brands in three years

Mark Stenberg

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