Purch Acquires AnandTech, Dominates Tech Expert and Enthusiast Market
Leading content and commerce company adds respected mobile, computing, and IT reviews site to its brand portfolio
NEW YORK, NY (December 17, 2014) – Purch today announced the acquisition of AnandTech.com, a leader in mobile, computing and IT analysis and reviews. Purch’s industry-leading combination of high-quality content and integrated commerce experiences makes complex buying decisions easy for more than 100 million consumers and professionals monthly. With the acquisition of AnandTech, Purch furthers its mission to simplify purchase decisions for in-market tech consumers by adding one of the most popular computer components, hardware, and mobile reviews sites to a brand portfolio that already includes category heavyweight, Tom’s Hardware.
AnandTech has been at the forefront of the technological evolution, providing groundbreaking reviews and trend coverage of cutting-edge mobile and computing products since Anand Shimpi, one of the tech industry’s most authoritative and respected figures, founded it in 1997 at age 14.
“AnandTech has grown by leaps and bounds over the past several years, but we were nearing what’s possible as an independent company,” said Ryan Smith, editor-in-chief, AnandTech. “The challenge has always been that there are very few players in the publishing space these days who value deep, high-quality content. We wanted a partner that understood our values, had a sound business model to ensure AnandTech’s legacy would continue for years to come, and would allow us to grow and expand our readership without compromising the quality that made us who were are today. Purch provides all of these things. I am beyond excited about what we’ll be able to do with their support.”
“The addition of AnandTech to a brand portfolio that includes Tom’s Hardware, Tom’s Guide, and Top Ten Reviews unquestionably establishes Purch as the dominant provider of in-depth, quality technology content, serving technology buyers who want to ensure the value of their potential investments,” said Greg Mason, CEO, Purch. “Technology manufacturers, too, can be assured that their messages will reach any serious buyer. The two editorial teams represent the finest, most expert group of content talent in the technology space. ”
“AnandTech represents much of my life’s work over the past 18 years,” said Anand Shimpi, founder, AnandTech. “I am happy to see it end up with a partner committed to taking good care of the brand and its readers. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Purch offers brands and advertisers unmatched reach to tens of millions of discerning in-market tech consumers and professionals each month. These tech “enthusiasts” look to the kind of detailed research, benchmark testing, and advice from category experts during their buying process for which Tom’s Hardware and AnandTech are known. Readers trust that advice because it is backed by nearly two decades of testing every mobile and PC component imaginable, and is supported by unprecedented input and guidance from the biggest, passionate community of like-minded enthusiasts.
Purch’s acquisition of AnandTech is the company’s most recent move in a series of strategic acquisitions and partnerships aimed at furthering its mission to ease complex buying decisions for shoppers and deliver branding and performance results to advertisers. In 2013, the company acquired the renowned “Tom’s” brand of tech media sites and, earlier this year, purchased BuyerZone, the leading online marketplace for SMB buyers and sellers. Purch’s ability to trigger buying decisions in an array of product categories is evidenced by the more than 7,000 marketers and sellers that come to Purch to connect with ready-to-buy consumers. Each year, Purch’s content-commerce combination drives more than one billion dollars in commerce transactions.
In addition to the acquisition, Purch is now the number one technology publisher in the U.S., [1] with a global readership of more than 100 million monthly unique visitors.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
To find out more about Purch, visit www.purch.com or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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About Purch
Purch is a portfolio of digital brands and services that helps make complex buying decisions easy for 100 million consumers monthly. Its respected sites such as Top Ten Reviews, Tom’s Guide, Tom’s Hardware, and Live Science natively integrate commerce and content in more than 1000 product categories so consumers can make better choices before, during, and after an important purchase.
The company helps marketers achieve their branding and performance objectives in a high-quality, brand-safe context. Its sites connect in-market shoppers with more than 7,000 marketers and sellers, driving industry-leading conversion rates and $1 billion in commerce transactions annually.
Purch is a high-growth, privately held company with more than 350 employees and offices across the U.S. and Europe.
For more information on Purch, visit www.purch.com or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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[1] Source: comScore U.S. Media Metrix, Tech-News category ranking by unique visitors, PC audience, September 2014
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Hairs_ - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
I hope that this new deal allows the site to expand as it needs to. Anandtech is in a league of its own quality-wise for reviews of anything it addresses, and always has been.As mentioned above, the pace of change in the PC sector has slowed to a crawl, which coupled with Anandtech's in-depth approach isn't helpful from the point of generating "launch day" content. Perhaps a change into more long-term testing, reliability-based reviews etc could solve that. Widening the scope of testing could also help, I've mentioned more than once that reviews of *genuine* low-end or mid-range hardware is sadly lacking in practically all areas of the site, with motherboards and RAM reviews particularly standing out. Motherboard reviews seem to assume that $200 is "midrange" at this stage. At the moment we've got x99 and 10GbitE motherboards being reviewed, but there's nothing on the apparent slew of H and B series motherboards that will overclock even though they're not officially supposed to. "Roundup" reviews where multiple competitors of the same type also seem to have gone by the wayside.
Editorially, I think everyone is on the same page that: Tom's Hardware is a site full of junk reviews which offer nothing whatsoever to Anandtech in terms of "learning". I wouldn't even trust Tom's to have benchmark donkey-work farmed out to them.
Creig - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
"The company (Purch) helps marketers achieve their branding and performance objectives in a high-quality, brand-safe context. Its sites connect in-market shoppers with more than 7,000 marketers and sellers, driving industry-leading conversion rates and $1 billion in commerce transactions annually."A marketing firm has purchased AnandTech? Get ready to be bombarded with ads on every page.
araczynski - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
i've been with anandtech & tom's hardware for many many years (lurking/reading mostly). stopped going to tom's a few years back when it became a cesspool of ads.what happens here is yet to be seen, hopefully it doesn't devolve into merely yet another ad-delivery mechanism like 99% of websites.
there's always ars/engadget/slashdot for good birds-eye-view of the sector, but not much left for the ground level view.
Michael Bay - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
Slashdot is only good for loonix circlejerking.cknobman - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
Already removed the daily news feed from the homepage. That and the articles were the main reasons I came here.Didn't take 2 days to start screwing a good thing up, nice.
LtGoonRush - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
Tragic news, as I've been following the site for over half of my life. I had hoped that the site might find a way to continue after Anand's departure, but I suppose it was always unlikely that it would survive the loss of that much talent in such a short time. It's just especially disappointing to see it sold to a garbage content farm company.pwr4wrd - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
End of an era as we know it, which started with Anand's departure.Red Dawn - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
Well let's hope Anand made some serious banksuperflex - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
So long Anandtech.You used to be a great resource on computer hardware.
Now you've gone full retard.
Getting rid of Brian Klug was strike 1.
Selling out to Purch is a weak line out to the pitcher.
You wont be missed. Deleting the shortcut from my browser after this is posted.
Good luck Ryan. You're gonna need it with all those shitty writers you have working for you.
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
Thanks. Let me make another "crappy" comment for you to enjoy....First, "getting rid" is hardly what happened to Brian Klug. He had a great job opportunity and is likely making several times as much money as he could have made sticking with AT. As for Anand, he really was quite tired of all the travel and something a bit less chaotic is a nice change of pace. Think about how long he was doing the same thing, day after day, year after year -- and not as one of us crappy writers; he had to run the site as well. At one point he had a post saying something like, "This is the first vacation I've taken in ten years." I'm sure he earned plenty of money, but money as they say can't buy happiness.
So if you're thinking it's time to do something else, what do you do? You find a way to pass the torch to someone new, get out while you're still doing well and have a business worth buying. That's basically what happened. I realize this is the Internet, so every time there's a major announcement of change like this everyone likes to come out of the woodworks and proclaim the end of the world. That way if they're right, they can pay themselves on the head and say, "I told you so." And if they're wrong, as they usually are, they go back into hiding and wait for the next time to forecast a dire future.
The fact is that the people writing for AnandTech have not changed in the past several months. Everyone who was with AT when Anand retired is still alive and kicking. Reviews are still in progress, and delays sometimes happen. Several of the editors are in school as well, which inherently creates a slow down in output.
If anyone reads this and thinks they could do a better job at writing articles, by all means write something and submit it to Ryan, Ian, or me. If you can string together a bunch of coherent sentences about technology and you are passionate about the subject, there's certainly room for adding people. Or you can continue to go around grumbling about the collapse of the site, lack of quality reviews, etc. because it's a lot easier to do that I suppose.