Buzzfeed Revenue’s Down, But at Least it’s Got More Cash Than Debt

By Christiana Sciaudone • 8 hours ago
Mojahid Mottakin – stock.adobe.com

Buzzfeed entered 2025 with a cash balance exceeding debt levels after selling assets. It’s got a renewed focus on programmatic ads and affiliate commerce going into the future.

In 2024, the company repaid $153.8 million in debt after divesting of Complex for $108.6 million and selling First We Feast for $82.5 million. Cash totaled nearly $39 million at the end of 2024, while debt was at $25.5 million down from $125 million a year earlier.

Overall revenue for the quarter fell 20% to $56 million and for the year dropped 18% to $190 million. Net loss for the quarter totaled $4 million versus net income of $4 million a year earlier. For the year, net loss reached $58 million compared to $34 million in 2023.

Buzzfeed said revenue in 2025 will grow up to 10% more than last year’s, in the range of $195 million to $210 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected for the year in the range of $10 million to $20 million, an improvement of approximately $10 million year-over-year at the midpoint. 

“2024 was a transformational year as we strengthened our fundamentals, streamlined operations and scaled our high-margin revenue streams,” founder Jonah Peretti said in a statement. “By leveraging AI to optimize our tech and advertising, enhance audience engagement, and explore R&D for BF Island, we have positioned BuzzFeed for long-term success in the AI era.”

Buzzfeed is building BF Island, a social media platform, and will start beta testing it with users in the second quarter with a goal of converting 5% of BuzzFeed’s 34 million monthly users to BF Island. 

“We are also building social and viral distribution into the platform to drive growth, which we believe could outpace the growth of our publishing business,” the company said in a statement. “The content on the platform will be entirely user-generated, with AI assistance, allowing it to scale in ways that are impossible for our other editorial businesses.”

The company is modeling monetizing at an average revenue per user rate in the low double digits per year, approximately 50% of Snap, Pinterest and other smaller social media services.

“We would expect to produce positive EBITDA in our first full year post-monetization and scaling quickly in subsequent years.” The company has invested $10 million thus far in BF Island.

Some relevant figures from the quarter from a year earlier:

  • Q4 revenue of $56.2 million down 20% in line with the company’s outlook shared in December.
  • Advertising revenue declined 19% to $25.4 million with a push toward programmatic advertising, which was about flat year-over-year at $18 million.
  • Commerce and other revenues increased 39% to $21.3 million, supported by strong affiliate performance; affiliate commerce grew 39% to $20.8 million.
  • Net loss from continuing operations was $3.8 million, compared to net income from continuing operations of $4.4 million a year earlier.
  • Time spent improved approximately 10% to 79.3 million hours.

In the fourth quarter, Millennials and Gen Z spent more time consuming BuzzFeed content than that of any other digital media company in its competitive set, according to Comscore. Affiliate commerce revenue growth came thanks to July’s Amazon Prime Day and October’s Prime Big Deal Day.

Buzzfeed took no questions during its earnings call. The stock has been largely on a downward trajectory since going public in late 2021.