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Maven, HubPages Sign Final Agreement; Audience, Product Teams, Revenue Operations Now Unified and IntegratingMaven (ticker symbol MVEN) and HubPages have executed the final, definitive agreement for Maven's acquisition of HubPages and have completed the initial phase of integration, Maven announced today. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180320005337/en/ 
Maven organic users and channels. (Graphic: Business Wire) Since Maven agreed to acquire HubPages on Jan. 5, combined advertising solutions have been delivered to the market; a single strategy with combined platforms has been designed; and the first phase of technical integration is underway. Additionally, Maven's branding, navigation and content is expected to launch across combined channels in April, with the acquisition formally scheduled to close June 1. The combined traffic of the two companies grew to over 43 million uniqe users in February, with more than 200 content channels combined and live by April, across more than 30 content verticals. HubPages advertising revenue, since strategically joining forces with Maven in January, grew more than 167%, year over year, from February 2017. HubPages was a profitable company in 2017, according to their recently completed audit, which means the merger will not increase operating cash needs for Maven. "Since combining our reach and sales efforts this past January, and receiving strategic ad consulting from Maven early last fall, significant doors have been opened in new ad partnerships as well as sharp improvement in yield and efficiency, which furthers our goal of best-in-class monetization for independent publishers," said Paul Edmondson, co-founder and CEO of HubPages and now Maven's head of growth. "Additionally, our management and engineering teams are now fully integrated, driving toward a shared strategy and vision and executing against a unified product roadmap." "Independent publishers, true mavens, can now reassert control of their future by uniting," said Maven CEO James Heckman. "Fueled by innovative platform technology and a collective advertising and distribution presence of elite digital media properties, this coalition of mavens now has enough scale to offer true sustainability for independent publishers and the HubPages merger is key to fulfilling that goal." Heckman also pointed out the critical timeliness of the merger for independent publishers. "Uniting now allows coalition members an opportunity to repair the damage done to their communities by the changing whims and tactics of social media platforms," said Heckman. "The revenue consequently lost almost overnight by independent publishers can now be replaced, thanks to the combined audience size and advertising efficiencies of the platform. Coalition members share ownership and strategic direction of the company, which means these mavens have a direct voice in the direction and policies that affect their future." ABOUT Maven is a coalition of mavens operating on a shared digital publishing, advertising and distribution platform, unified under a single media brand. Based in Seattle, Maven is publicly traded under the ticker symbol MVEN.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180320005337/en/ |
