Bustle Digital Group Buys Another Digital Site Off The Brink

Bustle Digital Group has gotten itself another floundering digital media brand to rebuild. The company revealed Wednesday night that it has purchased The Outline, a Millennial-focused general interest news site that last fall abruptly laid off its entire editorial staff, while an outright closure was rumored imminent. The brand was only founded in 2016 and in the year before it went staff-free, said it was valued at $21 million by investors who had given it $5 million in a round of funding. BDG did not reveal what it paid for the site, but anything near that valuation is doubtful. In two investment rounds it gathered $10 million. Whatever the price BDG paid, it seems founder and chief executive officer Bryan Goldberg is looking at The Outline as more of a ad-tech play than an editorial one. “The Outline has created industry-leading technology and ad product,” Goldberg wrote in a statement on the deal. He added his appreciation of the site “as an independent, story-driven publication,” but said he’s looking forward “to working together to speak to new audiences that BDG has not previously reached.” Goldberg told WWD last year that, even with all the talk of paywalls and subscriptions for digital media, “Advertising is the

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