Mashable could be for sale for as much as $300 million
The potential buyer is rumored to be Time Warner Investments, Doctor reports. Time Warner led Mashable's $17 million round of funding in January, which valued the company at $180 million.
Doctor describes 2015 as a "year of reckoning" for digital news companies, which had to either "grow, die, or be bought."
2015 has indeed seen many deals in digital media: AOL sold to Verizon, Business Insider sold to Axel Springer, Re/code sold to Vox Media, and BuzzFeed, Vice, and Vox Media all received big outside-investments.
Quartz, The Atlantic's tech and science publication, is rumored to be up for sale. Smaller publications like GigaOm and The Bold Italic shuttered this year.
Doctor reports that Mashable's revenue for 2015 is expected to be around $35-40 million. In November, according to Comscore, Mashable had 23 million visitors.
Pete Cashmore famously launched Mashable out of his home in Aberdeen, Scotland ten years ago when he wss 19 years old, with no outside capital. Now, Mashable has raised $31 million from investors including Time Warner Investments and Tribune Digital Investments.
This isn't the first time there have been reports about Mashable getting bought. In 2012 Reuters reported CNN was buying Mashable for $200 million, a deal that did not materialize.
When reached for comment, a Mashable spokesperson said: "Mashable does not comment on investment or financial matters related to the company."