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Ozy Media, a digital production company whose co-founder turned YouTube into a $ 40m bid from Goldman Sachs, says it is closing, bringing in a curtain that promises to shake up commercial and entertaining news.
The opinion announced Friday night comes five days after the New York Times described in detail the OD Media business and its audience growth.
“At Ozy, we have been blessed with a special team of volunteers. Most of them are international journalists and professional professionals who we should be very grateful to and our co-workers,” the company said in a statement.
“That’s why we have so many heavy hearts that we have to announce today that we are closing the doors of Ozy,” he added.
Ozy acknowledged the move, calling it the “psychological component” experienced by author Samir Rao. The New York Times also questioned what Ozy said in 2019 that it reached 50m users per month and compared it to what comes from ComScore, which tries to engage with the internet, showing statistics on those segments.
Carlos Watson, a senior, co-founder and face of Ozy Media, criticized the NYT report, saying it was inaccurate. Recalling a staff member at Ozy Media this week, Watson said the New York Times’ approach was outdated and had failed to reach an audience with a number of companies.
However, despite Watson’s efforts to protect Ozy Media, which attracted a star-studded team of committee members and supporters over the years, a number of top executives left following what the New York Times revealed.
Former BBC journalist Katty Kay resigned from the talks, which she described as “difficult and dangerous”.
Hedge fund manager is Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry came down from the agency as soon as he took office three weeks later, although he said he had been selling the company on Thursday.
Ozy established himself in 2013 as one of a group of digital production companies, such as Vice and BuzzFeed, which at the time drew billions of dollars from retailers because of their interest in young people.
The company, dubbed Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”, received the first money from Axel Springer in 2014, seeing the group as $ 120m. Overall the company has raised more than $ 80m in raising funds since its inception, according to PitchBook data.
On the first Friday before Ozy announced his closure, Axel Springer said he had not been in office since 2019 but that the company’s CEO, Jens Müffelmann, had attended the meetings and watched.
“In view of what has happened and the accusations against Ozy, [Müffelmann] has decided and informed the CEO of Ozy yesterday that [is stepping] resignation ”, the company said.
Another first-time salesman, Laurene Powell Jobs, Emerson Collective, also wants to secede from the company this week. “Emerson has not participated in Ozy’s recent fundraising and has not served on the committee since 2019,” the company said.
Additional reports of Alistair Gray in London and Miles Kruppa in San Francisco