Axios To Sell To Cox Enterprises In Deal Valued At $525 Million

Axios, the digital media startup covering politics, technology and media, has agreed to be purchased by Cox Enterprises, the communications, automotive and media company.

The value of the deal for Axios Media was $525 million, according to a source familiar with the transaction and other reports. Cox Enterprises bought a stake in Axios last year.

Alex Taylor, Cox Enterprises chairman and CEO, said that “bringing a forward-thinking organization like Axios into Cox Enterprises is exciting for us on many levels, and we look forward to helping them continue to scale and grow.”

Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz will continue to have stakes in the company, and will still lead  editorial and day-to-day business decisions. Taylor will take one of four board seats controlled by Cox, with the three Axios founders remaining, Axios reported.

VandeHei said that they “have found our kindred spirit for creating a great, trusted, consequential media company that can outlast us all. Our shared ambitions should be clear: to spread clinical, nonpartisan, trusted journalism to as many cities and as many topics as fast as possible.”

Axios launched in January 2017, and has quickly grown. A signature innovation was its “Smart Brevity” story structure, which highlights key bullet points and quotes in breaking news and trend stories. Starting in 2020, it launched Axios Local in cities around the country. They now cover 24 cities with another to launch soon.

Cox Enterprises will continue to operate its current media companies, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Dayton Daily News, independently.

Axios’ communications software business, Axios HQ, will become an independent company majority owned by the Axios co-founders, and Cox will be sole minority investor. VandeHei will be chairman of the board and Schwartz will be CEO.

Axios reported that the deal includes an additional $25 million investment for expansion of is news properties. The company has more than 500 employees.

The sale is the latest large media buyout of a digital startup. Last year, Axel Springer bought Politico for about $1 billion. The Axios founders left Politico in 2015 to launch the new company.