A Series of Wholly Unrelated Observations About Vox Media's Acquisition of Recode

In 2009, a venture capital firm now called Comcast Ventures led a seven-million-dollar series B funding round in a blog network called SportsBlogs, Inc.; it invested in SportBlogs again in 2010 during a 10.5-million-dollar series B round. A couple of years later, in 2012, SportsBlogs launched a new technology site called The Verge and became Vox Media. Comcast Ventures invested in the company again, this time during a thirty-four-million-dollar series D round; it and Accel Partners were the only two investors in the round. According to CrunchBase, to date, Vox Media has received nearly a hundred and eight million dollars in venture capital from six investors.

Comcast Ventures is the “venture capital affiliate” of Comcast.

When Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg launched Recode in 2014, NBCUniversal News Group made a “strategic investment and content partnership” in Revere Digital, the parent company of Recode and its Code conferences. Its content was distributed “across NBCUniversal News Group’s multiple media platforms,” while CNBC became “Revere’s media partner for its global conferences.”

NBCUniversal News Group, which includes NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC, is a division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast.

Yesterday, Vox Media, which has received millions of dollars from Comcast Ventures, announced that it would acquire Revere Digital, which had received an undisclosed number of dollars from NBCUniversal News Group, in all-stock deal.

Comcast Ventures is made up of the combined entities of Comcast Interactive Capital, which was the venture capital affiliate of the company, and the Peacock Equity Fund, formerly the venture capital affiliate of NBCUniversal and General Electric; it and the NBCUniversal News Group are owned by Comcast.

Last month, Fortune reported that Vox Media held acquisition talks with Comcast; it fell apart. Comcast Ventures, one of Vox’s several institutionally powerful investors, would still like to sell Vox Media to Comcast imminently. (We have heard.) There sure are a lot of Comcast people roaming around the Code Conference currently happening in California, where Vox CEO Jim Bankoff formally announced its acquisition of Reverge Digital. (We have also heard.)

Comcast is Comcast.