American web portal Yahoo has struck a deal to sell TechCrunch, a leading tech-focused journalism website, to Regent, a San Francisco-based media investment firm. TechCrunch announced the news.
- It is said that the journalists will continue their usual work, only moving to a new office.
- The amount of the deal is not disclosed, but is expected to be under $100 million, as the deal does not require regulatory review.
- Yahoo will retain a "small share of the company," which is also not disclosed. Yahoo retains ownership of another technology site, Engadget.
The deal is part of Regent's strategy to pull together a portfolio of tech news sites and invest in them.
A day before the announcement, the firm also acquired Foundry, housing several well-known online English tech publications, such as PCWorld, TechAdvisor, and Macworld.
Why Yahoo sold TechCrunch?
Yahoo's business centers mostly on aggregation. The tech giant's focus is predominantly on increasing and distributing online traffic, while journalism isn't its core focus.
"Yahoo decided to sell TechCrunch because, in the end, our DNA is simply different from the rest of its portfolio. While Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, and Yahoo Finance excel at aggregation, TechCrunch has always been about original reporting and news analysis," TechCrunch stated.
Over the past few years, TechCrunch, one of the most influential tech news sites in the US, has been subject to several ownership changes. Yahoo took control over the media, after its former parent AOL and Yahoo were acquired by Verizon and then sold to Apollo as one entity in 2021.
Last year, TechCrunch laid off several of its employees after it shuttered its subscription product TechCrunch+. According to SimilarWeb, TechCrunch had 12.6 million visits in February 2025.
