Dear readers -
We created Quartz for people excited by change, and have focused our journalism on helping you see around corners. Today we’re unveiling some change for Quartz itself, with a sharper vision of our future and a bet on where media is headed. We’re very excited about it, and want to share with you why.
The headline news is that Quartz has reached an agreement to be acquired by Uzabase, a publicly listed Japanese media company with great success across Asia. Uzabase was founded 10 years ago by entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity to provide superior, user-friendly tools for people doing business in East Asia. The company went public in 2016 and now has two core businesses: Speeda, a financial-data and business-intelligence service, and NewsPicks, a business news app for consumers. As part of this deal, Quartz will take over responsibility for the English-language version of NewsPicks on behalf of Uzabase, while continuing all of our existing activities. (You can download NewsPicks for iOS and Android here.)
Uzabase’s ambition echoes our own—to build the leading business news brand of this century—and now we are united in this mission along with you, our readers. We expect the partnership will allow us to provide you with even more high-quality, independent, globally minded journalism about the new global economy.
Many things will remain unchanged following the completion of this acquisition. Quartz will continue to operate without interruption, and we’ll continue to offer all of our products—QZ.com, emails, apps, bots, and Atlas—as before. Our leadership team will also stay the same.
But this is also a new chapter for us as a business. We will soon offer you ways to go even deeper with Quartz’s coverage through subscription products. These will build on and learn from the success that NewsPicks has had with similar offerings in Japan. We expect our existing products to remain free, but are very focused on also providing premium content and services alongside them, and have been surveying readers about what else you would value from us.
This acquisition comes at a time of momentum for Quartz. We’re on track to increase advertising revenue 25-35% over 2017, which will set yet another all-time record in revenue for our company. Our full-time workforce and global reach are at their greatest levels in our history; we’re preparing to launch an ambitious new video show on Facebook; are near the release of a new version of QZ.com; are building on our email success with the Quartz Obsession and have just won a prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for our journalism.
At Quartz’s launch in 2012, Kevin’s letter to readers declared, “We view the creation of Quartz as just the beginning of an ongoing process,” and promised that “we intend to do some things differently than you might expect.” In our first six years, Quartz has shaped our industry in many ways. We intend to be no less ambitious in the years ahead.
As you may know, Quartz has been owned by Atlantic Media since the beginning. We couldn’t have asked for a better company to help us get off the ground. And as we move into our next chapter, Uzabase is the perfect partner to create a truly global business media company spanning from Tokyo to New York. There is a striking overlap in the official values of Uzabase and Quartz, which include the importance of boldness and creativity, genuinely putting users first, being globally minded, and doing everything with a spirit of generosity.
Thank you for reading Quartz and supporting us over the years. We look forward to serving you for the rest of this century.
Best,
Kevin J. Delaney, editor in chief & co-president
Jay Lauf, publisher & co-president