Three years ago, the digital media holding company Recurrent Ventures was struggling.
A $300 million investment from the private equity firm Blackstone in 2022 had turned into an albatross, and the company spent the period that followed shedding titles, laying off staff, and cycling through three chief executives in three years.
But since then, the company has retooled both its commercial and editorial strategy, a rebuild that has yielded a more disciplined, sustainable operation, according to CEO Andrew Perlman.
The clearest signal of that shift came earlier this month, when Recurrent sold Dwell, Domino, Business of Home, and PopSci to Ziff Davis. The divestiture was an intentional narrowing, similar to the portfolio pruning happening at other house-of-brands media companies, like Condé Nast and Vox Media.
The home titles and PopSci served different demographics and advertisers compared to the company’s military and auto publications, according to Perlman. They were also more difficult to align with the company’s increasing focus on video and events.
What remains is a tighter, more thematically coherent portfolio, categorized largely into two verticals: auto and military.
The military brands include Task & Purpose, We Are the Mighty, The War Zone, and Military Spouse, plus the Military Influencer Conference. Its auto titles include Donut, Real Mechanic, and The Drive. Three others—Outdoor Life, Bob Vila, and Futurism—do not fit neatly into either group, but they attract a similarly male-skewing audience, per Perlman.
The refocused portfolio reflects an organizing principle at Recurrent, which prizes expertise over scale. In a media landscape upended by collapsing search traffic, focus is now the goal.
The company, which has roughly 100 staff, is profitable and generates an eight-figure revenue, according to Perlman. He declined to offer further specifics. Measured against the roughly $50 million in revenue and $15 million in EBITDA it took in at its 2021 peak, it is likely smaller but more durable.
The commercial strategy now rests on four pillars: video, experiential, licensing, and AI, a deliberate position against the broad programmatic scale that Perlman argues no longer works.
“If you are in media now, you can’t run the type of website business that you used to,” he said.
