Ziff Davis Buys 4 Recurrent Ventures Manufacturers, Opens New Group

The digital media firm Ziff Davis acquired 4 media manufacturers from Recurrent Ventures on Friday, selecting up the house titles Dwell, Domino, and Business of Home, together with the science writer PopSci.

The three residence manufacturers will kind the idea of a brand new life-style group inside Ziff Davis, led by Business of Home founder Julia Noran Johnston, based on the corporate. PopSci will be part of the corporate’s expertise division, slotting in alongside CNET, Mashable, PCMag, and Lifehacker. All workers on the 4 titles will likely be retained.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Ziff Davis, a publicly traded firm, studies its quarterly earnings on Friday, though any acquisition that prices lower than $134 million doesn’t have to be recorded. One M&A government accustomed to the sector estimated the worth of the deal at lower than $20 million. 

The acquisition extends a roll-up technique that has made Ziff Davis among the many most energetic patrons in digital media at a second when most strategic acquirers have largely retreated. 

The firm bought Lifehacker from G/O Media in 2023, CNET from Red Ventures for greater than $100 million in 2024, and theSkimm in March 2025. It additionally has the money to maintain going: In March, Ziff Davis offered its Connectivity division to Accenture for $1.2 billion.

The life-style group is a brand new vertical for Ziff Davis, whose portfolio has traditionally skewed towards male audiences in expertise, gaming, and purchasing. 

The residence manufacturers will function the inspiration for a broader push into classes the place the corporate has little or no presence, together with meals, decor, health, vogue, and sweetness, based on an individual accustomed to the technique. This enlargement may even be led by Johnston. 

The rationale behind the acquisition rests on the thesis that, as synthetic intelligence floods the web with artificial content material, audiences will place extra worth on trusted manufacturers with established editorial voices. Dwell, Domino, and Business of Home have cultivated loyal followings within the design and structure area, whereas PopSci, based in 1872, is among the oldest repeatedly operating editorial retailers within the U.S.

That conviction within the utility of name has made the corporate a prepared purchaser for properties shed by portfolios in retreat. Lifehacker got here out of a shrinking G/O Media, CNET from a Red Ventures retrenchment, and now the 4 manufacturers from a winnowing Recurrent.

For Recurrent, the sale represents the newest step in a years-long contraction.