Can BuzzFeed Build a Newfangled Media Conglomerate With $50 Million?

Often it feels like just a matter of time before BuzzFeed expands beyond Facebook, beyond Twitter, beyond earth, and starts launching extraterrestrial outposts in such places as Jupiter, Venus, and Mars. It’s just a matter of time before pods of cheerful, young BuzzFeed staffers are scattered across the solar system, cranking out must-read lists like, “47 Reasons to Love Living on the Bright Side of the Moon.”

BuzzFeed’s appetite for far-flung conquests can at times seem insatiable and inevitable. On Sunday, for example, BuzzFeed announced that in the months ahead, the company will use a $50 million injection of Series E funding from Andreessen Horowitz to fuel a new wave of expansion. (Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg Businessweek, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz.) Among other things, BuzzFeed will invest in its editorial news team, which will add outlets in India, Germany, Mexico, and Japan. It will build a test kitchen and launch a food lab. It will incubate technology and prowl for possible acquisitions. And it will launch “BuzzFeed, Off BuzzFeed,” which sounds like an in-house detox center for meme-addled staffers, but in reality has something to do with experimental content distribution. And that’s not all.