Bustle is nearing a deal to buy millennial news site Mic for less than $10 million, according to two people familiar with the matter. That price, which hasn’t previously been reported, would be a massive discount to Mic’s last reported valuation in 2017, when it was said to have raised money at a valuation in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The talks, which were first reported by Recode, started in recent days, after Mic’s discussions with another potential buyer fell through, one of the people said. Mic’s willingness to sell at such a big drop in valuation demonstrates the difficult conditions faced by many small online media firms struggling to build a sustainable business amid a digital advertising market dominated by Facebook and Google.
