Industry Dive

About Industry Dive

Industry Dive is a business news publisher based in Washington, D.C., operating industry-specific digital news sites covering sectors from healthcare and energy to retail, education, and construction. Founded in 2012, the company built its reputation on a "going small and deep" strategy: rather than chasing mass audiences, it serves carefully curated communities of business leaders and decision-makers with original reporting delivered through websites and email newsletters. By the time of its acquisition by Informa in 2022, the company reached nearly 13 million executives and leaders — including readers at every Fortune 100 company — through 27 specialist publications and more than 70 daily and weekly newsletters. Its official website is industrydive.com.

Founding in 2012

Industry Dive was formed in 2012 by three co-founders: Sean Griffey (president), Eli Dickinson (chief technology officer), and Ryan Willumson (chief revenue officer). The company was funded with $900,000 from private investors raised in 2012 and 2013 — a modest sum by digital-media standards, and one that shaped its disciplined, audience-first approach. At launch, the company covered five industries: construction, education, marketing, utilities, and waste. The founding thesis was that business executives were underserved by general business media and that a publisher could build a valuable business by serving narrow professional audiences deeply — with journalism written specifically for the decision-makers in each sector, delivered digitally to their inboxes and mobile phones. Griffey later articulated the philosophy as "going small and deep" as opposed to scaling audience for its own sake, arguing that depth of engagement with the right readers made for a profitable business model.

Growth and the Newsletter Model

Industry Dive's growth engine was the email newsletter. The company aimed to serve business executives who read news digitally, reaching them with newsletters on their mobile phones as well as on the web. Revenues increased significantly from 2015 to 2018 on the back of larger digital readership, placing the company in the top half of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and the top 20 percent of the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies. In 2016, the company launched the Dive Awards, its own program recognizing excellence across the industries it covers. In 2020, DCA Live named Industry Dive to its "Red Hot Companies" list, which recognizes the Washington, D.C., area's fastest-growing companies. By 2023, the company's estimated revenue exceeded $110 million, and as of 2022 it employed about 380 people, including more than 100 staff members in editorial roles — a newsroom of unusual size for a digital B2B publisher.

Expanding the Portfolio

From its initial five verticals, Industry Dive steadily expanded its portfolio of specialist publications, eventually operating 27 web-based publications across more than 20 industries. The company's titles follow a consistent naming convention — Construction Dive, Restaurant Dive, Healthcare Dive, Retail Dive, Utility Dive, Waste Dive, Education Dive, Marketing Dive, CFO Dive, HR Dive, Supply Chain Dive, and others — each serving the executives and practitioners of its sector with original news and analysis. The publications are supported by more than 70 daily and weekly email newsletters that deliver curated coverage directly to subscribers. This portfolio strategy allowed the company to replicate its playbook across industries: identify a professional audience, hire dedicated reporters, build a newsletter habit, and sell access to that audience to B2B marketers. Content-marketing clients included major enterprises such as IBM, Siemens, and UPS.

Acquisitions: CFO and PharmaVOICE

As it scaled, Industry Dive supplemented organic growth with acquisitions. In 2020, the company acquired CFO, the long-running publication serving chief financial officers and finance executives, extending its reach into the C-suite finance audience. In 2021, it acquired PharmaVOICE, a publication serving the pharmaceutical industry, deepening its footprint in healthcare and life sciences. Both deals fit the company's pattern of buying established specialist titles and integrating them into its digital-first, newsletter-driven operating model. The acquisitions demonstrated that Industry Dive's ambitions extended beyond launching new verticals from scratch to consolidating existing B2B media brands under its platform.

Falfurrias Capital Partners Investment

In 2019, Falfurrias Capital Partners, a private equity firm, acquired a majority stake in Industry Dive. The investment provided capital for continued expansion while validating the company's business model in the eyes of institutional investors. Under Falfurrias' ownership, the company continued to grow its revenue past the $100 million mark and expanded its newsroom and product capabilities. The private-equity backing also set the stage for the company's eventual sale: having professionalized the business and scaled its audience and revenue, Falfurrias was positioned to exit to a strategic buyer in the B2B media and events space.

Acquisition by Informa

On July 19, 2022, Industry Dive announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Informa PLC, the London-based international group focused on B2B markets, live and on-demand events, and digital services. Informa purchased the majority stake from Falfurrias Capital Partners for about $525 million, in a transaction expected to close in the third quarter of 2022 subject to regulatory approval. At the time, Industry Dive had grown to more than $100 million in annual revenue. Informa's chief executive, Stephen A. Carter, said the deal reflected a shared philosophy: like Informa, Industry Dive champions the specialist, and its high-quality, targeted business insights had built an enviable following across B2B markets. CEO and co-founder Sean Griffey said joining Informa was an opportunity to more fully realize the company's mission of reaching the vast specialist audience in all its breadth and depth. The acquisition added Industry Dive's audience-development expertise, B2B digital-marketing capabilities, and 27 specialist publications to Informa's portfolio of specialist brands, which serve customers through events including Black Hat, Enterprise Connect, World of Concrete, and Content Marketing World.

Editorial Approach and Newsroom

Industry Dive's editorial model is built around original reporting for defined professional audiences. Its newsroom of more than 100 editorial staff — reporters, editors, and analysts assigned to specific verticals — produces news articles and analysis written for practitioners rather than general readers. The company's journalists cover the deals, regulations, technologies, and executive moves shaping their industries, with the newsletters serving as the primary distribution channel and the websites as the archive and discovery layer. The Dive Awards program, running since 2016, recognizes innovation and leadership across the covered sectors, reinforcing the company's embedded position in the industries it serves. The emphasis throughout is on utility: journalism that helps a busy executive do their job better, delivered in formats designed for mobile reading and inbox triage.

Life Under Informa

Since the 2022 acquisition, Industry Dive has operated as part of Informa's B2B media portfolio, combining its digital audience-development capabilities with Informa's events and research businesses. The strategic logic of the deal was complementarity: Informa's strength in live and on-demand events and specialist research paired with Industry Dive's strength in digital journalism and newsletter audiences. For Industry Dive, the backing of a global B2B group offered resources to deepen editorial excellence and expand into new markets; for Informa, the acquisition added a proven digital content engine reaching nearly 13 million business leaders. The company's Washington, D.C., headquarters remains the center of its operations, and its co-founders' "small and deep" philosophy continues to define its publishing strategy.

Official Website and Access

The official website of Industry Dive is industrydive.com, where readers can explore the company's portfolio of publications, sign up for its daily and weekly newsletters, and learn about its newsroom and business. Individual vertical sites — from Construction Dive to Healthcare Dive to Restaurant Dive — each maintain their own newsletters and archives. From a $900,000 startup covering five industries to a $525 million acquisition reaching executives at every Fortune 100 company, Industry Dive's decade-long run stands as one of the most successful executions of the specialist B2B digital publishing model in American media.