Publishing giant continues acquisition spree, snapping up two businesses to support social drive
Future Plc, the global platform for specialist media, has continued its rapid expansion with the acquisition of two businesses – WhatCulture, a social-first brand focused on the gaming and entertainment market, and data insight start-up, Waive, which uses machine learning to identify social trends. Together, these acquisitions will bolster Future’s diversification of revenue streams, alongside its social media offering, and editorial strategy.
Founded in 2006, WhatCulture produces engaging YouTube content for gaming and entertainment audiences. The business brings a wealth of YouTube advertising experience which will further strengthen Future’s position in video; with 11 YouTube channels that represent WhatCulture’s core method of monetization, attracting more than 8 million subscribers and over 4 billion views. The brand, which sees approximately 70% of its revenue coming from the US, complements Future’s existing portfolio of specialist entertainment content. This includes CinemaBlend, which has become the third highest ranked title in Comscore’s Entertainment – Movies* category, since its acquisition in 2021. WhatCulture will also benefit from Future’s proprietary technology, which will empower greater monetization of its websites and bring efficiencies to its operating model.
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Future has also acquired data insight company Waive, which uses advanced machine learning to identify and predict trending social topics across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit. The intelligent trend spotting platform will empower Future’s expert editorial teams to forecast trends, informing the creation of the most engaging content focused on what audiences will care about tomorrow.
Zillah Byng-Thorne, CEO at Future said, “We are delighted to welcome both WhatCulture and Waive to Future. We look forward to working with WhatCulture to further diversify our content and revenue streams, and are particularly excited about the video monetization expertise and data insight capabilities that Waive will bring to the Group respectively.”
Peter Willis, Co-Founder of WhatCulture said, “We’re really excited to join an organization like Future which has seen such amazing success. We have real synergies between our desire to create great original content for our audiences. Our YouTube expertise combined with their monetization and platform know-how will realize great opportunities for further growth in this area and unlock real potential across the business.”
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