The Messenger bets survival on huge ad revenue turnaround

The Messenger, the struggling news media startup co-founded by publishing veteran Jimmy Finkelstein, is urging potential investors to make a long-shot bet on a dramatic rebound in advertising this year.

The company is attempting to stop the cash burn that has put it in jeopardy.

CNBC has obtained an investor deck The Messenger was using as recently as late December to entice potential individuals or companies to infuse it with $20 million.

The Messenger, which started in May, launched on the idea of becoming a down-the-middle digital news juggernaut. It initially planned to hire around 550 journalists and generate over $100 million in revenue in 2024, according to The New York Times. The company ended up hiring a staff of 300 people and has since struggled financially, which has led to some recent layoffs, according to multiple reports.

The Messenger ended 2023 with a net loss of $43 million, according to the documents. The deck tells investors that with the infusion, the company plans to end 2024 profitable, with net income of $13 million.

The Messenger confirmed to CNBC that the deck was part of a “draft presentation,” that there have been “adjustments” to the numbers within the documents, and that the company intends to “make $13 million and be profitable in 2024.”

“It should also be pointed out that our traffic is growing at an enormous pace. Comscore latest numbers show that we generated 88 million page views in November, and Google Analytics shows that we generated 100 million page views in December. Our traffic is growing at 30% a month, already putting us ahead of many major news publications,” the company spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.

The documents say that The Messenger is planning to eliminate 40 positions and furlough 15 people for four months this year amounting to an estimated $6.2 million in annual savings.

That’s one of the details that’s since changed, according to a spokesperson….