Ozy Media (styled as OZY) was an American media and entertainment company launched in September 2013 by Carlos Watson and Samir Rao. It was headquartered in Mountain View, California, with an additional office in New York City.
On September 27, 2021, The New York Times reported a series of scandals at Ozy involving fraud and executive misbehavior. On October 1, after significant negative media attention, Ozy's board of directors announced that the company would cease operations. On October 4, Watson announced that the company would remain in operation with a significantly reduced board of directors. The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened investigations into the company. On February 23, 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that three executives, including both founders, had been charged with fraud.
Ozy announced on March 1, 2023, that it would cease operations. Its website went offline the same day.
History
Financing
Ozy was launched as a digital magazine and daily newsletter in September 2013. The company raised a $5.3 million seed round of funding in December 2013 backed by Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of Emerson Collective. Additional early investors included Louise Rogers and Ron Conway. Powell Jobs became a board member.
In October 2014, Ozy announced that German media giant Axel Springer had invested $20 million in the company. In January 2017, Ozy announced a $10 million Series B round of fundraising, led by Michael Moe's GSV Capital. In November 2019 Ozy announced a Series C round of $35 million, led by businessman Marc Lasry. Ozy also received funding from the Ford Foundation.
In January 2021, Watson said that the company had reached profitability for the first time. He stated that Ozy brought in $50 million in revenue in 2020. Several major news outlets questioned the legitimacy of these claims, and investors subsequently sued, alleging fraud and concealment. The company also said that it had received acquisition offers from unnamed media companies.
In March 2021, Ozy and Dentsu announced a multi-year partnership as part of Dentsu's investment in "meaningful media" focused on millennial and Gen Z consumers. In October 2021, Variety announced that such media-buying agencies were no longer willing to do business with Ozy in light of its duplicitous and alleged illegal behavior. WPP's GroupM, which makes buying decisions for advertisers including Ford Motor, Unilever and IBM, wrote in a statement, “We suspended all campaigns with Ozy Media on behalf of our clients … We have also terminated our agreement with Ozy Media at this time.”
Partnerships
From OZY's launch in September of 2013 until the summer of 2014, Watson (or sometimes authors of recent articles in OZY) appeared in a weekly installment of NPR's All Things Considered called "The New and the Next," in which he would lay forth on "People, places and trends on the horizon" appearing in OZY articles.
In 2014, the company announced a content syndication partnership with National Geographic.
In 2015, Ozy had a newsletter partnership with The New York Times and Wired. Ozy claimed that these partnerships helped the company secure a number of new newsletter subscribers. However, Ozy employees allege that the company lied about the nature and success of these partnerships, stole email contacts from these partners, and violated data privacy laws throughout the duration of the partnerships.
In 2019, Ozy produced a television show that aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network and won an Emmy for Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis. That same year, the company produced a show for PBS that won an Imagen award for Best Informational Program.
In 2021, the company co-created a podcast with the BBC. It had 33 episodes, the last of which aired in April 2021. Ozy also partnered with Lifetime, The History Channel, and with the History Channel's channel's parent company A&E Networks.
Allegations of fraud and closure
On September 26, 2021, the New York Times reported that Samir Rao, COO and a co-founder of the company, had impersonated a YouTube executive on a conference call with Goldman Sachs. The meeting was an attempt to secure a $40 million investment. Goldman Sachs contacted Google, YouTube's parent company, and confirmed that no YouTube executives participated in that call. As a result, Goldman Sachs did not go forward with the investment. Google referred the matter to federal law enforcement. The New York Times report also discussed inflated traffic numbers, which BuzzFeed had reported on in 2017.