News site The Messenger on Wednesday dismissed a report that the money-bleeding startup would shut down by the top of the month as “beyond absurd.”
Board members met last Friday and weighed closing Jimmy Finkelstein’s embattled company — which just launched last May — after learning that it’s “on target to expire of money at the top of January,” Semafor reported earlier within the day.
Nevertheless, a spokeswoman for The Messenger shot down the accuracy of the rival news outlet.
“We have now already secured investment as a part of our second raise, and so the notion of us discussing closure is beyond absurd,” the rep told The Post.
News of The Messenger’s possible demise got here a day after Finkelstein said he would slash about two dozen of the corporate’s nearly 300 staffers and confirmed the exit of president Richard Beckman, as The Post reported.
Finkelstein, who founded the location with a $50 million money infusion, reportedly called the meeting to debate the dire state of the corporate’s coffers, in response to multiple sources who spoke to Semafor.
The sources reportedly said the organization “only had enough money to last several more weeks” and that it could must make “steep cuts” to secure additional funding to survive.
The insiders noted that Finkelstein was also open to selling the business, reported Semafor, which was co-founded in 2022 by former Latest York Times media columnist Ben Smith.
Messenger’s rep declined to debate the corporate’s funds when contacted by The Post.
Finkelstein (left) weighed with The Messenger’s board whether to shutdown the location amid dwindling money, Semafor reported. Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
The Post reported that Beckman, an exec known for aggressively drumming up promoting revenue, did “not see eye to eye” with Finkelstein on the direction of the business.
Beckman didn’t mention the status on the business in his exit note Tuesday as a reason for leaving, but as an alternative cited his short-term health issues and his desire to retire to his home country of England.
Finkelstein, quite the opposite, did seek advice from the difficult economic environment, which has squeezed promoting and digital media corporations, on the whole.
Critics doubted that The Messenger, which launched in May, would have the option to hit revenue goals laid out by its top brass. The Messenger
“The economic headwinds have left many media corporations with significant challenges,” he wrote in his memo obtained by The Post. “The Messenger, as a start-up, has not been resistant to those challenges, and we are actually taking essential steps to turn into a rather leaner company.”
Ahead of the Messenger’s launch, critics told The Post in March that Beckman’s “pie-in-the-sky” growth projections were “delusional” and that the $50 million that Finkelstein raised to launch the location is “only a fraction” of the bill required to cultivate a first-rate media property.
Beckman reportedly told confidants that The Messenger is “out of cash.” Richard Beckman/Facebook
Shortly after the location launched, journalists began fleeing the Messenger, griping that they joined the location to do original reporting but that they were mostly aggregating clickbait news stories so as to drum up traffic for ad dollars.
Meanwhile, Beckman, who had crowed to the Latest York Times that the location would generate greater than $100 million in revenue in 2024, told employees this fall that the location was “out of cash,” the Day by day Beast reported.
