Morning Brew, the decade-old newsletter startup, is rebranding its corporate name to Morning Brew Inc., a reflection of its growth outside of its core daily email newsletter and most popular product, Morning Brew.
Why it matters: The rebrand further distinguishes Morning Brew’s consumer brands from its professional brands, which today drive $25 million in annual revenue for the company, according to an internal note from CEO and co-founder Austin Rief.
- “We decided that we had built too much affinity for the Morning Brew name and brand to start fresh. But we did need something that differentiated the company name from our flagship franchise,” Rief wrote.
Zoom out: The rebrand also reflects the company’s push to diversify away from email newsletters as its sole source of income and audience engagement.
- Today, Rief says, Morning Brew’s multimedia products are on pace to do “well over” $10 million in top-line revenue for 2025.
- That includes revenue from partnerships with social media creators and its daily podcast, which Rief said “delivered multi-million dollar” year-over-year advertising growth in 2024.
- Over 60% of Morning Brew’s engagement with its audience happens on platforms other than email, per Rief’s note.
Catch up quick: Morning Brew launched in 2015 as a single email newsletter catered to business-minded Millennials.
- Today, it offers newsletters, events and other content across seven professional services, including tech, marketing, retail, and more.
- Rief said 2024 was “a major inflection point for B2B capabilities at the company with an increased emphasis on events, data targeting and content services.”
- New B2B products and events generated $4.5 million in revenue in 2024, he said.
- Subscribers to the outlet’s seven professional newsletters have doubled since 2022, he added. (Axios reported in 2022 that it surpassed 1 million subscribers to its B2B newsletters.)
The big picture: More media companies are leaning into professional services and content to build a more reliable business.
- Business professionals tend to have bigger subscription budgets and are highly engaged.
Context: Morning Brew is owned by German media giant Axel Springer, which also owns Business Insider. Business Insider bought a majority stake in Morning Brew in 2018.
- Axel Springer also owns Politico, which serves professionals across policy and politics.
Reality check: Morning Brew’s expansion has been tempered by challenges to the news industry broadly.
- The company laid off 14% of its staff in 2022 and cut another 40 people last year. A few top executives departed months later.
What to watch: Rief expects revenue from Morning Brew Inc,’s B2B division to surpass the revenue from the company’s flagship daily newsletter for the first time next year.
- The Morning Brew newsletter, which Rief said remains extremely strong and “highly profitable,” has more than 4 million free subscribers.
Feature Image Credit: Aïda Amer/Axios
