Digitalbox acquires Daily Mash for £1.2m as digital media 'buy and build' spree continues
Entertainment Daily owner Digitalbox has acquired Mashed Productions, the parent company of Daily Mash, for £1.2m
The comedy site offers cutting jabs at current affairs
Digitalbox was recently bought out by investment firm Polemos in a £10m deal, this turned out to be a reverse takeover that saw the holding company adopt the Digitalbox name and lay out plans to build a digital media company composited of acquired titles.
Documents filed by the firm claim that UK-based Mash Productions raised £135,000 in pretax profits in the year running up to March 2018 - indicating a scalable business model created by Scottish journalists Neil Rafferty and Paul Stokes in 2017. The media brand also made a noted move into TV production with BBC Two's The Mash Report.
James Carter, chief executive of Digitalbox, said: “[We have an] ambition to create a market-leading, mobile-first digital media business through a buy and build strategy.
"We are excited to announce that our first planned acquisition will be the UK's leading satirical news site, The Daily Mash. With ten years of consistent audience growth under its belt and the Mash Report successfully airing on BBC2, it is a brand with huge potential. We are very much looking forward to working with the team to help them grow."
He said it shows that the group is targeting high-quality digital publications and added that there are more acquisitions in the pipeline.
Neil Rafferty, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Mash, said: “This is a great opportunity for the Mash to build on what we have created so far. My co-founder, Paul Stokes, did an incredible job building a profitable business from the ground up. Being part of Digitalbox and accessing their commercial and technical expertise, means we can keep building, while our fantastic team of writers continue to produce great content every day.”