How Daily Dot Quietly Funded the Next Era of Journalism
What's next for Fragment Media
Hi,
I’ve spent nearly two decades working to fix what’s broken in journalism. I grew up in a family of small-town reporters, and after trying hard not to follow that path, I realized how deeply I believe in the power of good journalism and in the importance of how the facts are gathered and the story is told.
In 2011, I left my family’s newspaper to launch The Daily Dot and bring community-driven reporting into the digital age. What began as a small website about life online grew into a Top 50 U.S. news site, generating almost $15M in annual ad revenue at its peak.
In 2020, I founded Fragment Media as a parent company to combine The Daily Dot with Nautilus to start focusing on creating publications that were truly made for readers. This might sound obvious, but as I wrote about this in a blog post on Fragment’s website back in 2020:
“Advertising has been the dominant model, and the business incentives for media are therefore to distract rather than engage or inform. Furthermore, the media does not work for you, the reader—the media works for advertisers. In Larry Page’s famous phrase, you are the product.”
Ad revenue from The Daily Dot was a critical catalyst for Fragment’s financial success and it earned us a spot on the Inc. 5000 in 2022 and 2023 and as a Top 20 Media business in the nation.
But like everyone else in media, The Daily Dot depended on a long-standing ad-supported model that is no longer delivering the same results. In 2023, ads were already declining, and it’s only gotten worse.
We turned our focus to Nautilus, our premium science publication, because its revenue has always focused on premium subscriptions instead of advertisements. We immediately started taking millions in revenue from The Daily Dot’s biggest years and used them to build the next era of journalism, what we call the “reader-first” media revolution.
As the age of ad-driven news comes to a close, we are already working hard on building the future. Our community investment round is about fueling what comes next—reader-centric, trustworthy, intentional media.
You—readers, investors, citizens of a society beholden to algorithms—are our beneficiaries, and we need your backing to ensure we are all successful in saving journalism.
By investing in Fragment, you are not only securing a future for independent media, you also stand to gain* from a sustainable and profitable media model. We are aiming for a win-win-win—for readers, for investors, and for society.
Invest in the future of journalism: wefunder.com/fragment
Sincerely,
Nicholas White
Founder & CEO, Fragment Media
*We can’t guarantee outcomes, and investing in startups is inherently risky, but I’ve made this my life’s mission and can guarantee we are working incredibly hard and being strategic with resources to drive success. I hope you will join us.