Refinery29 - Fashion Company Profile

Company Profile

Refinery29 today publishes from within Sundial Media Group, which acquired it in April 2024 after its former owner Vice Media's 2023 bankruptcy, and runs it as a standalone brand with Cory Haik as chief executive. It carries no shop box: Refinery29 is a publisher, not a product company, and this profile is about the publication and its history. Its corporate site is linked in the references below, and its fashion, beauty and culture coverage is at the website in the snapshot.

The filing records the company's growth marker plainly: in 2016, Refinery29 announced it had raised $45 million in funding led by Turner (Turner Broadcasting System). By then the city guide had become, in the profile's words, 'a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life,' delivering style and substance to an audience highly engaged across a variety of devices and destinations - from original video and features to live experiences and social storytelling - and covering breaking entertainment news, fashion tips and health alongside the fashion discoveries it began with.

From Vice Media to Sundial Media Group

The ownership chapter after this filing is a compact history of 2010s digital media. Vice Media acquired Refinery29 in 2019, in a deal reported at the time at $400 million, as Vice diversified toward Refinery29's young women's audience. Vice itself filed for Chapter 11 in 2023 and sold its assets to its lenders, and in April 2024 Refinery29 was acquired from Vice by Sundial Media Group, Richelieu Dennis's media company, whose properties include Essence, Afropunk, Girls United and Beautycon. Refinery29 operates as a standalone business within Sundial Media Group, with Cory Haik, formerly Vice's chief operating officer, as its chief executive. The city guide founded in 2005 thus sits today inside a portfolio built around serving women and multicultural audiences - a more natural shelf, its new owners argue, than a general entertainment group.