Buzz Feed on this

News site to IPO in 2018: sources

An initial public offering has long been rumored to be in BuzzFeed’s future. Now, a report out Wednesday has pinpointed just how soon the digital news and entertainment site will IPO: next year.

“Viral powerhouse BuzzFeed is quietly making preparations to go public in 2018,” according to Mike Allen, the co-founder of digital news site Axios, citing industry sources.

In its most recent fundraising round in November, BuzzFeed was worth a reported $1.5 billion.

BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti has often said he’d like to go public at some point. Allen offers no details as to why Peretti would set his sights on 2018.

Peretti does have a boatload of venture backers to satisfy. The company has raised $446.3 million in six rounds from 14 different investors — going back as far as 2008, when it picked up Series A funding from Hearst Ventures, according to Crunchbase, a data tracker.

BuzzFeed’s backers have grown to include NBCUniversal, New Enterprise Associates, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, among others.

BuzzFeed generated its early traffic with listicles and cat videos but has pushed for more serious and investigative work as well in recent years.

Its revenue is derived primarily from native advertising — long-form video ads designed to resemble editorial content.

The company was said to be burning through its cash for most of its existence but, in 2014, Peretti said the company became profitable.

There were reports — never confirmed by BuzzFeed — that it missed its growth projections in 2015.

In Peretti’s 2016 year-end statement to employees, he said, “Our revenue grew over 65 percent this year, continuing a trend of 25 quarters in a row of double-digit yearover-year revenue growth.”

The company declined to comment on its actual revenues or any profits or losses and didn’t shed any light on its IPO plans .