- Forbes Media has acquired a majority stake in Quantalytics AI Labs (formerly known as Quantamize). These are the details.
About a year ago, Forbes Media CEO Michael Federle told Digiday that the business publication company hit its most profitable year since 2006. Forbes Media — which is owned by Hong Kong-based investment company Integrated Whale Media Investments — has been looking into making acquisitions and startup investments since then.
According to a recent Digiday report, Forbes Media recently acquired a majority stake in Quantalytics AI Labs (formerly known as Quantamize) — which is a service that utilizes artificial intelligence for forecasting the performance of stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies. And Forbes PR published an article about the deal today as well.
Here is what Quantalytics’ dashboard looks like:
The SEC Form D filing shows that Quantalytics AI Labs sold $3.9 million worth of equity to four undisclosed parties. In that filing, it discloses that Forbes chief financial officer Michael York and Forbes Media strategic investments associate Taha Ahmed were named directors of Quantalytics AI Labs. And Quantamize co-founders Wallace Mathai-Davis (chairman) and Stephen Mathai-Davis, CFA, CQF (CIO) were listed in the SEC document as well. About two years ago, Quantalytics AI Labs had also sold equity in the company for $2.65 million.
Forbes Vice President & Assistant Managing Editor Matt Schifrin told Digiday that the company is going to determine ways to offer insights from Quantalytics to its reporters over the next year. This would provide more valuable insights for Forbes’ 94 million monthly unique visitors and 45 million social media followers.
Last year, Forbes acquired a British online business publication called The Memo for an undisclosed amount. The Memo is no longer online and the founder of that publication Alex Wood now works as Europe Editor at Forbes.
In order to diversify revenue, Forbes has been reducing its dependence on online advertising sources. Forbes has been seeing tremendous growth from licensing and events like “30 Under 30.” And the company has been making direct deals for its BrandVoice initiative.
Disclosure: I wrote for Forbes as a contributor between February 2013 and May 2019.
