Blackstone bets $1.3 Billion with IDG on B2B Data and Media

Blackstone made one of the boldest digital media deals of the past year. It acquired the B2B media and mar-tech company International Data Group (IDG).

IDG’s portfolio of approximately 300 tech and IT publications,including CSO, TechHive and Computerworld, fuels one of the largest B2B data and targets worldwide operations.The company is split into two businesses: IDG Comms, which encompasses media and events,and the data and research arm International Data Corporation (IDC).

CEO Mohamad Ali said IDG is well-placed to secure its spot in a new era of data-driven marketing.And having a billion-dollar backer in Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, doesn’t hurt either. He further added that since the internet came into existence, the strength of digital media companies has been measured by third-party connections.But, the idea to leverage a massive number of first-party relationships with, specifically, technology buyers – people who might operate IT departments or spend a million dollars on flash storage arrays would reap benefits.

Companies that rely on third-party cookies or bitstream data stay under continuous yet increasing pressure. It’s believed that first-party connections are going to become premium again.Having the whole technology stack underneath content would harness first-party relationships. There has been a static data model on the IDC side that can be consumed on the fly. That’s been a vast effort the past two years.

When putting the first-party data, the ABM platform is the best solution acquired last year with Triblio. ABM platform being the orchestration layer, you knowthe people to target at a business. This makesdata available only through the company because it is in a targeted way. This will prevent data from going into the bidstream and get stolen.

The opportunity with Blackstone to collaborate and build up the tech stack to modernize each business side will be highly beneficial. The building to data layer by IDG Comms data will be precious. As Blackstone basically said, “Continue doing what you’re doing.”We have a big checkbook to go out and acquire new parts for the platform, said CEO Mohamad Ali. He further added, ‘our goal is to be IPO-ready by the end of 2022.’

The successful exit vision from Blackstone’s perspective is to own the ABM data layer and growing a $1.3 billion business to $2 billion.