Acquisitions, honors elevate stature of Indiana online media companies

In the not-too-distant past, media was defined as something published on paper or transmitted via radio or television.

Traditional providers of information, or “legacy media,” evolved. The IBJ, once solely a newspaper, now also meets its audience at IBJ.com and through email newsletters, social media and podcasts.

Meanwhile, newer companies emerged and bypassed print and broadcast components. Online is the place to offer immersive and on-demand experiences.

“Things are coming out of the digital world naturally, because that’s where the audience is,” said Jack Shepler, founder of Indianapolis-based marketing and web design firm Ayokay.

Static Media, Uncovered and Audily—three media companies launched in Indiana—are growing thanks to acquisitions and outside recognition.

Fishers-based Static Media is a big player with a relatively low profile. The company owns more than a dozen websites focused on food, entertainment and home improvement. Food brands Tasting Table, Daily Meal and Mashed made Static a Top 10 destination among internet users seeking lifestyle and food content in March, according to analytics company Comscore. Static’s purchase of website Food Republic in May is expected to bolster that audience.

Uncovered, an online platform that collects crowdsourced information to pursue resolutions for cold-case crimes, became a finalist this spring in the national Next Challenge for Media & Journalism competition hosted by the American Public Media Group.

And Audily, an Indianapolis-based podcast and audiobook production company, acquired Boston-based production studio Rococo Punch—known for investigative podcast series such as “The Turning”—in May.

Matt Wells, Audily’s president, said Indianapolis is a strong podcasting town thanks to industry leader Audiochuck, home of the “Crime Junkie” podcast, as well as marketing platform Casted and B2B agency Share Your Genius.

But not every innovative company makes it.

Indianapolis-based Mandolin—which emerged during the pandemic as a successful concert livestreaming platform—went out of business in April. Conceptualized through venture studio High Alpha, Mandolin launched in June 2020 and raised $5 million in seed-round capital. In June 2021, Mandolin announced $12 million in Series A financing.

On a smaller scale, Ayokay founder Shepler operated a music journalism website, rockmusicreview.com, from 1998 to 2007. After the website ran its course, Shepler found success as a DJ and concert promoter.

“I just wanted to start my own media outlet online,” he said of rockmusicreview.com. “I eventually stopped, because I never figured out how to make money from it.”

Here’s a look at where Static Media, Uncovered and Audily fit in today’s media landscape:

Static Media

Led by CEO Reggie Renner, a graduate of Carmel High School and Indiana University, Static Media boasts 20 million YouTube subscribers, 15 million Facebook followers and 8 million Snapchat subscribers across its brands.

Renner co-founded the company in 2012 with Mike Langin, who lives in Canada. Static has 235 full-time employees, including 96 in Indiana.

Static staffers make videos in a Fishers office, and the company works with more than 1,000 freelance writers in various locations.

Renner said the company makes money through advertising that appears on Static websites such as glam.com, grunge.com and looper.com.

Static’s secret to success, however, is content recommendation engine ZergNet, which Renner and Langin founded one year before Static. If you’re familiar with blocks of “Recommended for You” or “Around the Web” items at the bottom of online posts, you likely have seen ZergNet at work.

Static funnels articles published at its websites through ZergNet to learn what people want to read, Renner said.

“We get a lot of information on what people are engaging with,” he said. “We have a powerful A-B testing platform. When news breaks, we cover it from many directions and many publishers. Within seconds, we can upload an article in several different variations of headlines and thumbnails to learn exactly why people are engaging with a certain topic. That can dictate your editorial decisions, leading you to more efficiencies in media.”

Renner said audiences might respond positively or negatively to specific phrasing in a headline, a photo or a general topic such as eggs.

“We had 1.2 million people visit a Food Republic article about water and hydration,” Renner said.

Renner has no journalism training. The CEO of the company that owns slashfilm.com and tastingtable.com said he rarely watches movies and doesn’t cook.

He said he enjoys hiring people who are experts in the topics covered by the websites.

“I’m more passionate about the data and business side,” Renner said. “What I feel is wrong with most media companies is that they’re just guessing in the wind about what will work well. I’ve always thought, if you brought some serious data-driven techniques into media, you could build a profitable entity.”

Dallas Mavericks owner and IU alum Mark Cuban was an early investor in ZergNet and Static. Renner said Cuban and other investors sold their equity this spring and “did quite well.”

In April, Static Media entered a partnership with Canadian private equity firm Novacap.

“We’ve essentially changed out our early investors for late-stage investors like Novacap,” Renner said. “Now we can just use our own profits. If we want to do a larger acquisition, we could do that.”

Uncovered

Jim Brown describes Uncovered as a way to combine technology and community to bring peace to the families of murdered or missing people.

The former sales specialist for Indianapolis tech firms Slingshot SEO and Compendium said he founded Uncovered with Ashlee Fujawa and Anna Eaglin to “do something good.”

Brown said his interest in “true crime” media influenced Uncovered and its mission to find answers in cold cases.

“Since 1980, more than 250,000 cases have gone cold in this country, for either a murder that took place or a missing person who was considered to have experienced serious bodily harm,” said Brown, an IU alum who grew up in Columbus. “I thought, ‘Why can’t we let people do more than just consume entertainment and actually advocate on behalf of the families in these cases?’”

Brown moved to Denver with his family after Uncovered launched in 2021. Fujawa and Eaglin exited the company in 2022.

Uncovered maintains an Indiana presence thanks to personnel such as Chief Technology Officer Craig Sturgis and “almost the entire portfolio of investors,” Brown said.

Sturgis said Uncovered’s database of 49,000 unsolved cases is accessible to visitors to uncovered.com, and many entries are enhanced by maps and timelines.

“Along the way, we picked up this community,” said Sturgis, a Purdue University alum who also grew up in Columbus. “That was always the vision, for the community to drive a lot of this.”

Brown said Uncovered has three revenue streams. For now, the most lucrative is a newsletter known as The Citizen Detective. While it’s free to sign up, Uncovered sells sponsorships for the newsletter, which has 26,000 subscribers. The company also sells advertising on its website, which attracted nearly 200,000 visitors in May. And a paid community membership is $11 per month or $97 per year.

Uncovered’s business model was encouraging enough to make it one of 30 finalists in this year’s Next Challenge for Media & Journalism, which seeks “groundbreaking startups that will reinvent media in the coming decade.”

The company didn’t take a top prize in the contest, but Brown said Uncovered is exploring a partnership with a DNA database company to craft new content that could take shape as an online video series.

Any momentum is appreciated by loved ones affected by unsolved crimes, Brown said.

“Sometimes they feel like their own family has given up on them because they’re tired of hearing about the case,” he said.

Audily

Matt Wells, the president of Audily, who previously worked for Indianapolis concert company MOKB Presents, said podcasting can be intimidating to newcomers.

The on-demand audio format requires recording, distribution and promotion, and Wells said his company offers turnkey assistance in all three phases.

“A lot of people were underserved on the human side of podcasting,” Wells said. “If you have something to say and you have a microphone, you shouldn’t have to learn anything else.”

Audily, which launched in March 2022 after conception by Texas-based venture studio Nth Venture, is a podcast and audio production company that supplies microphones and other gear in audio toolkits sent to content creators worldwide.

Once an episode is made, Audily works on promotional assets such as YouTube clips, social media posts and email newsletters.

“There are ways to create evergreen content that doesn’t just die on the vine in a podcast app somewhere,” Wells said.

Audily gained a creative branch last month by acquiring fellow independent company Rococo Punch, Wells said.

Boston-based Rococo Punch is known for producing award-winning podcasts “The Turning” and “Welcome to Provincetown” and for having clients such as Pitchfork and This Old House.

Founded in 2019 by public radio veterans Jessica Alpert and John Perotti, Rococo Punch intends to explore new genres, Alpert said in a written statement.

“Diversification is key to building a long-term sustainable business in today’s media landscape, and we’ve been working toward this moment,” she said.

Wells said he’s eager to work with the established and respected team of Alpert and Perotti.

“Rococo Punch definitely is going to retain its brand and focus on storytelling and really thoughtful, creative, investigative podcasting,” he said.

The new Audily has 12 full-time employees in 11 states, Wells said.

Although podcasting turns 20 next year (if the age is determined by the 2004 launch of Adam Curry’s “Daily Source Code” show), Wells said it remains a growth industry.

“I don’t see a situation where the audience doesn’t continue to grow,” said Wells, a Butler University alum who grew up in Madison. “Every year, there’s 20% more people listening to podcasts. That just keeps on rolling, and it keeps permeating into different age groups.”•