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Vice Lands 2nd Investment, to Fuel Expansion

Shane Smith, chief of Vice, reporting from Greenland.Credit...Vice

Vice Media, the rabble-rouser of the news and entertainment business, has landed a pair of investments totaling $500 million to fuel the expansion of its media empire.

The media group, which is based in Brooklyn and is known for its trendy vibe and commando-style news reports, has closed a $250 million investment from Technology Crossover Ventures, the Silicon Valley venture capital company that has invested in Facebook and Netflix. The financing follows a $250 million investment from A&E Networks, the television group owned by Hearst and Disney that is home to the A&E, History and Lifetime cable networks.

Vice will maintain its independence through the deals, with both TCV and A&E each making the investments in exchange for an approximately 10 percent stake in the company. The transactions value Vice, which started as a free punk magazine in Montreal 20 years ago, at more than $2.5 billion.

“Vice is having a real moment now,” said Tom Freston, the former chief of MTV who is one of Vice’s investors and closest advisers. “It wanted to ensure that it was fully armed so that it could make the most of it.”

Vice executives and the group’s new partners said the deals allowed it to bolster its technological capabilities and content production in the United States and the 35 other countries where it operates. The transactions dwarf the recent $50 million investment made in the digital media start-up BuzzFeed, which valued that company at about $850 million.

The TCV partnership and investment, which was first reported by Re/code, will be devoted to creating proprietary technologies for distributing media across the web, mobile and social. The A&E partnership and investment will fund Vice’s expansion into a broader array of global programming about news, culture, sports, fashion and more.

The deals come after a summer of courtship between Vice and parade of media giants, including Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, Time Warner and Disney. Vice has managed to convince many traditional media executives that it is the gatekeeper to a new generation of millennial viewers, especially the elusive young male. Last year, Fox bought a 5 percent stake in Vice for $70 million.

“They are a very powerful brand, and it cannot be underestimated their ability to reach a very hard-to-reach audience,” said Nancy Dubuc, chief executive of A&E Networks.

Over the years, Vice has steadily expanded into digital, television and film. The group expanded its news operation in 2014 and recently made headlines with a documentary series about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Vice says that it reaches a total of 150 million people each month across the globe, though that figure is difficult to confirm. In the United States, Vice.com attracted 9.3 million unique visitors in July across desktop and mobile, according to comScore.

Vice is profitable and on track to make about $500 million in revenue this year, according to a person with knowledge of the company. A large portion of the revenue comes from its advertising business that makes videos for large corporations. Other revenue includes digital ads and television and film production.

Shane Smith, Vice’s chief executive, has been outspoken about his quest to expand further into traditional television, where people still spend hours a day on average and which still commands the bulk of media revenue.

Vice now makes a 30-minute weekly program for HBO — with the tagline “News from the edge” — and Mr. Smith has said that he would like to operate a 24-hour Vice network. Vice had that chance in discussions with Time Warner, but the two companies could not agree on how much Vice was worth and how much control it would have over the network.

Vice’s pair of deals does not deliver a ready-packaged TV network, and it is unclear whether Vice will now land a network of its own. Andrew Creighton, president of Vice, said that the company was evaluating its options for television distribution.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Vice Gets 2nd Investment, to Aid Expansion. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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