NowThis Media

Industry

Digital Media

What we did

M&A Strategy, Post-Merger Integration, Data Lake Architecture

Awards

Strategic Deal of the Year ’23 (internal)

Objective

The client wanted to absorb NowThis News plus seven niche channels, hit 25 % YoY ad-rev growth in 12 months, and keep editorial latency under 4 hours per story.

What we've done

1. Built a four-scenario DCF and comparable-multiples model in Python to anchor a price 10 % below market.

2. Engineered a 15 % earn-out tied to MAU and CPM milestones.

3. Unified Looker, NetSuite, and in-house CMS into a single Redshift lake.

4. Merged 53 FTEs, applied OKRs, and retained 92 % of editorial talent.

Creative Process

1. Discovery Sprint (2 weeks) | Deep-dive SWOT, channel heat-map, Monte Carlo risk model.

2. Financial Engineering (3 weeks) | Elasticity analysis on ad inventory; scenario stress-tests at ±20 % CPM.

3. Negotiation & Close (6 weeks) | Board road-shows, earn-out clauses, IP indemnity audits.

4. Zero-Downtime Cutover (60 days) | Dual-track CMS, Kafka event piping, SSO merge.

5. 90-Day Growth Burst | A/B test headline cadence; doubled video throughput to 400/wk via automated captioning.

Results

45 % MAU jump in 90 days; held bounce under 28 %.
25 % lift in digital-ad revenue within 12 months—2.1 × faster than forecast.
Month-end close cut 5 → 3 days; $1.5 M annual finance/HR synergy.
Editorial speed: broke news 37 min faster (median) post-integration.

Conclusion

A seamless deal is half art, half Kubernetes. By pairing precise financial levers with real-time data plumbing, we scaled storytelling and revenue—simultaneously.

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