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Outlet profile

Quartz

U.S. center-left, business-focused

Owned byRedbrick, a Canadian software company headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, since April 2025. Previously owned by G/O Media (2022–2025), management/staff (2020–2022), Japanese firm Uzabase (2018–2020), and Atlantic Media (2012–2018).
FundingDigital and newsletter advertising, with Redbrick integrating its Paved newsletter ad platform into Quartz's base of over one million newsletter subscribers. Formerly relied on a mix of display advertising and subscriptions under earlier owners.
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Quartz was launched in 2012 by Atlantic Media as a digital-native publication aimed at business professionals in the global economy, distinguishing itself with data-driven stories and a mobile-first design. In 2018, Atlantic Media sold it to Uzabase, a Japanese business media company, for $86 million, but Uzabase struggled financially and sold Quartz back to co-founder and CEO Zach Seward for roughly one dollar in 2020. G/O Media, a holding company backed by private equity firm Great Hill Partners and owner of Gizmodo and other properties, acquired Quartz in 2022 for under $10 million — marking its fourth ownership change in about ten years. In January 2025, while still under G/O Media, Quartz launched the 'Quartz Intelligence Newsroom,' an initiative using generative AI to produce content, which drew sharp criticism from journalists and industry observers. In April 2025, G/O Media sold Quartz and the commerce site The Inventory to Redbrick, a Canadian software firm whose portfolio includes newsletter ad platform Paved; the acquisition was followed by the layoff of nearly all remaining editorial staff, with Nieman Journalism Lab describing the outlet as 'a zombie brand.' Independent media raters including Media Bias/Fact Check and AllSides place Quartz in the left-center range, noting a slight liberal tilt in story selection alongside generally high factual accuracy. The outlet originally built a reputation for sharp global business coverage but has sharply contracted in original reporting capacity since 2025.

Sources

  1. Quartz (publication) – Wikipedia
  2. G/O Media sells Quartz to Canadian software company – Axios
  3. Redbrick Acquires Quartz from G/O Media – Business Wire
  4. 'Quartz is now a zombie brand' – Nieman Journalism Lab
  5. Quartz Fires All Writers After Move to AI Slop – Futurism
  6. Quartz will have its fourth owner in 10 years – Poynter
  7. Quartz Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
  8. Quartz Media Bias – AllSides

Profile compiled 2026-06-26; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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