How Axel Springer Doubles its Value by 2030 (AI+ Acquisitions)
Armed with a $4 billion war chest, Mathias Döpfner bets on three AI-driven pillars—and a shopping spree of smart takeovers—to hit the double-value mark in 5 years.
Axel Springer sits on a $4 billion war chest with zero debt.
Its bold billionaire boss, Mathias Döpfner, vowed last week to double the company’s value by 2030.
His playbook:
Three AI‑powered pillars, AI and a buying spree that could reshape global media.
Here’s my take.
I’ve taken each of the 3 pillars below and added my thoughts on how he’ll get to his doubling.
And because it wouldn’t be Axel-Springer without some fun takeovers, I added an “Acquisitions” section at the bottom with my top choices.
For the math, I’m using Springer’s valuation via the WSJ.com of:
Now: €3.4 b ≈ $4.0 b.
Goal: €6.8 b ≈ $8.0 b.
So, here’s how Springer gets to $8 billion.
1) Own the Audience with AI-Powered News
Döpfner mentions 3 business “pillars” to get to the doubling and the first is journalism.
Döpfner sees the need for journalism to now go direct:
“Journalism is our core, but…the business model of maximizing clicks and advertising is over!” …“Dependence on search and Social is a weakness. Owning the audience is a strength.”
— Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel-Springer
That last line shows how worried he is about depending on Google, Meta et al.
And he sees AI helping them move journalism beyond text:
“In the future, text seamlessly transforms into audio and video. Artificial intelligence will help with this.
How brands in Pillar 1 underpin the “double-the-value” target
Scale + first-party data – Together they reach well over 500 million monthly visits / opens, giving Springer the audience graph it needs to shift from platform-dependency to “owned traffic.”
An “AI-powered newsroom” — HI + AI workflows that spin text into chat, audio and video at scale (Insider AI search, WELTgo assistant, BILD “Hey_”). Automated recaps, translations and A/V renders should cut unit costs per story while unlocking new ad formats (voice pre-rolls, shoppable video).
Subscription uplift – High-ARPU, niche products for pros (Politico Pro, Bild+ and Insider+) can show that personalization and vertical depth can push pricing power—exactly the kind of margin expansion Pillar 1 must deliver.
Cross-brand experimentation – Morning Brew’s newsletter tactics and Upday’s AI-only feed are low-risk sandboxes whose wins can be ported back to the larger newsrooms fast.
2) Turn Clicks into Cash with Commerce Engines
“Our second pillar—Bonial, Idealo, and Awin—is our economic backbone.”
— Mathias Döpfner, CEO, Axel Springer
He had less to say about pillar 2 except:
“The best for these e-commerce-driven media companies is yet to come.”
Translation?
Let’s scale these high-margin businesses to help cash the rest of our biz!
Or, buy new companies just like them (see my “Acquisitions” section at bottom).
How it underpins the “double-the-value” target
Performance-marketing flywheel – every sale or store visit is tracked, letting Bonial, Idealo and Awin price inventory on proven ROI rather than CPMs.
First-party commerce data scale – shopping-graph insights feed Pillar 1’s ad-tech stack, lifting yields across Bild, Welt and Insider.
Margin ballast – these three units already supply the bulk of Springer’s EBITDA; even modest topline growth at 25 %+ margins funds riskier AI bets.
Optionality – management can refinance, spin, or sell one of its media-markting platforms (e.g., Awin is reportedly worth ~$460m) to unlock capital for Pillar 3 acquisitions without new debt.
3) Strike “New Gold” with High-Growth Bets
But Döpfner knows he can’t rest on the laurels of Pillars 1 and 2:
“We have to build a high-margin, hyper-growth business beyond journalism and marketing media. We have to find new gold. Like we found one and a half decades ago with digital classifieds.” – Mathias Döpfner (source)
The comparison to classifieds (which they recently spun off to KKR and the CPPB) is interesting.
Axel-Springer bought their way into classifieds (the high-30 % EBITDA margin biz) throgh acquisitions like Stepstone, SeLoger, TotalJobs et al) in 2009 to 2012.
Qualites that Axel-Springer’s old classifieds biz had were:
Network-effect categories – Jobs and property ads sell access, not inventory, so market leaders capture most of the profit.
Subscription-like revenue – Recruiters and agents pay recurring listing fees; margins routinely top 35 %.
Buy-and-build discipline – Springer kept rolling smaller portals into StepStone or AVIV, driving scale without ballooning costs.
How it underpins the “double-the-value” target
Strategic hedge – a new business that can keep growing even if ads or subscriptions soften.
Classifieds-level economics – think EBITDA margins north of 35 % and valuations at double-digit revenue multiples.
Core-competence overlap – must exploit Springer’s unfair assets: audience scale, commerce data, and editorial credibility.
Who is Axel Springer going to buy?
I’d be shocked if Springer doubles its value without M&A.
Remember: Döpfner and Springer bought POLITICO, WELT, Business Insider, Bonial (kaufDA / MeinProspekt), Idealo, Awin and Morning Brew).
Döpfner growing without acquisition is like the New York Yankees winning the world series by cutting payroll.
As he told the Sunday Times a few weeks ago:
“The likelihood that we are going to make acquisitions is very high.”
—Mathias Döpfner, CEO, Axel Springer
Understatement.
There are tons of companies to buy including any of the ones in “The Top 50 AI Startups Powering Content Publishers — Ranked by Funding”
But here are 7 I’m especailly keen on:
The Wall Street Journal
Valuation: ~$4 billion
Bang! In one move, Springer doubles to $8 bil. in value.
Game over.
Can Döpfner talk Rupert Murdoch into selling the #1 business newspaper in the world….the gold-standard, Pulitzer-laden crown jewel of News Corp?
I know: it’s a long-shot.
Buying WSJ would be a huge deal (News Corp. paid $5.6 billion for Dow Jones in August 2007 and the WSJ accounted for ~70% of Dow Jones profits back then).
So buying just The Journal would cost $4 bil.+ (all of Springer’s war chest)
And isn’t The Wall Street Journal Rupert’s baby?
Rupert fought hard to buy Dow Jones and The Journal.
But times change.
Rupert’s has other babies to worry about.
His kids.
Rupert has asked Nevada courts (case still pending) to rewrite his 1999 family trust (for News Corp and Fox’s voting blocs) to give son Lachlan control.
The old trust had Lachlan and his other three eldest kids getting 25% voting blocs each (after Rupert’s death). But Rupert wants his eldest son Lachlan (who is head of News Corp and Fox) to to get 100% voting.
The Trust case doesn’t look good for Rupert.
Nevada commissioner Edmund Gorman concluded in a decision that Rupert and Lachlan acted in "bad faith" in their effort to amend the irrevocable trust.
Rupert Doesn’t Like to Lose
But even at 94, Rupert can deal circles around just about any human.
He isn’t about to surrender over family squabbles or what one judge says.
One way to calm the succession chaos is liquidation.
Rupert could just start selling assets.
Döpfner would be first in line to take The WSJ off the Murdoch family’s hands.
The Washington Post
Valuation: ~$1.5 billion
If the Wall Street Journal deal doesn’t work out, you gotta Döpfner takes a swing at The Post.
The Post is a “Goldilocks” target—big enough to matter, but still within reach of Springer’s $4B war chest.
Post owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t need the money, but he also doesn’t need headaches like the OpEd debacle or trying to make The Post profitable.
And Bezos needs to spend a lot of time making sure Amazon rides nails the AI wave.
And he’d like more of us to get our Amazon delivers via drones in our new spacestation homes
I don’t see Bezos owning an asset like The Post and not working his tail off to make it succeed.
Plus, Bezos bought it for $250M in 2013 — so he can look like a winner.
Döpfner has long admired elite U.S. news outlets.
If Springer took over, it could deploy AI-powered newsroom tools and a subscriptions-first strategy to reverse losses. This fits tightly with Pillar 1—and could make a major dent in Springer’s five-year value-doubling goal.
Let’s move on to the more techie media plays
Substack
Valuation: ~$1 billion
Substack is a perfect buy for Axel-Springer.
They’re a direct digital media company.
Disclaimer: I’m writing this article on Substack
Substack has 500,000 creators who use Substack to connect with their subscribers (through free and paid subscriptions).
And the writers aren’t just amateurs. Here are some media stars who moved to Substack.
Jim Acosta – Former CNN anchor with a popular video Substack
Mehdi Hasan – Ex-MSNBC host running Zeteo News
Jennifer Rubin – Left WaPo to launch The Contrarian
Terry Moran – Longtime journalist now publishing independently
Chuck Todd – Former NBC political anchor on Substack
Derek Thompson – Atlantic writer with a new newsletter
Subscribers pay Substack a reported $450 mil. pe year. Substack keeps 10% of that).
That’s $45 mil per year of recurring revenue.
And Substack needs cash (see Eric Newcomber’s “SCOOP: Substack in Talks to Raise Financing as It Taps Into the Zeitgeist of Trump II”)
Thanks,
(himself a creator on Substack!) for the above metrics.“Sources tell me that Substack is pitching investors on a round between $50 million and $100 million that would value it above its roughly $700 million last round price”. — Eric Newcomber
Substack has no advertisers to worry about.
Buying Substack reinforces Döpfner’s direct mantra (see pillar 1).
But there’s a sneaky something more…
Trojan Horse: Substack Gets Axel-Springer “A Social Media Platform”
Döpfner wants to minimize dependence on platforms.
How about he becomes one?
While most people know Substack for its long-form email newsletter/blogging type platform, Substackers can also post short Twitter-like updates to their audiences through a feature called Notes.
Why does that matter?
Many Influencial creators have been tweeting less and some (like Jay Clouse, Justin Welsh and Dan Koe) recently started pubs on Substack.
They are all posting Notes.
shared the importance of Substack Notes in his “What’s going on with Substack?” podcast episode.“It's as if you were publishing on Twitter and you shared a link to your blog, except they're both on the platform and Substack wants you to read that. So it's a really smart marriage.”
Buying Substack gets Döpfner both the “deep and long-term relationships” with users he craves with no dependence on Google or social media and his own potential social media platform).
Captions.ai
Valuation: ~$2 billion (recently valued at $500 mil. but growing so fast)
Captions is my favorite pick of the group (cemented after I listened to the 2 co-founders interviewed on this Invest Like the Best episode).
And Döpfner would have to act now — this unicorn could be worth $10 bil. this time next year.
Captions is not a publisher—it’s an AI-native video lab.
The app started as a mobile captioning tool. But it’s now a full-stack AI video creation platform.
You can record a talking-head video and instantly fix lighting, eye contact, background, subtitles, pacing, music—everything.
The company says it has over 5 million users and is already pushing into AI avatars, dubbing in 28 languages, and lip-sync correction.
That’s not a gimmick. It’s a production studio in your pocket.
Their tools are perfect for short-form publishing, creator-driven news, native video ads, and global journalism.
Tools + Talent
And the team? Top AI pedigrees. They acquired AlpacaML. They’ve recruited ex-DeepMind researchers.
Springer has been experimenting with newsroom AI—automated translations, subtitles, even article drafts. Captions could 10x that.
Imagine BILD or WELT running AI-generated video explainers for every article, in every language, in minutes.
No outside vendors. No waiting for agencies.
This deal would also let Springer offer new services to advertisers—like branded content videos, social clips, or campaign tools—at global scale.
Captions isn’t ad tech. It’s creation tech.
That aligns perfectly with Döpfner’s “hyper-margin, hyper-growth” mantra in Pillar 3.
But it gets even better…
Trojan Horse: The Next YouTube or Film Studio
Captions isn't just enterprise AI. It's viral.
Influencers, entrepreneurs, marketers, indie journalists—they’re all using it. Captions has become the go-to tool for creators trying to stand out on YouTube Shorts, Reels, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Buying Captions gives Springer a real foothold in the creator economy.
It gets them distribution. Attention. Algorithms. Talent discovery.
Captions could spin off:
A user-generated social network (like TikTok or YouTube)
A film studio — future film directors could use the platform to make long-form feature films
A Streaming TV Network — creators can make more episodic shows.
Captions is not just software. It’s an on-ramp to the new media world.
And it would let Döpfner do something rare for a European media CEO:
Own the pipes and the people.
Criteo
Valuation: ~1.5 bil.
Another Pillar 2 play (Retail Media/Ad Tech).
This Paris-based ad-tech firm specializes in e-commerce marketing (retail media, product retargeting, and AI-driven ads).
Criteo’s focus is connecting online shoppers with targeted product ads – a natural complement to Springer’s properties like Idealo (price comparison) and Awin (affiliate marketing).
With retailers increasingly monetizing their sites with ads, Criteo’s tech could future-proof Axel Springer’s “e-commerce-driven media” pillar”.
Criteo is publicly traded (market cap about $1.3 billion as of mid-2025).
Acquiring it would give Axel Springer a large new revenue stream in retail media technology and data, likely boosting margins.
This directly supports pillar 2’s expansion of media marketing platforms and could appreciably increase the company’s overall valuation.
Synthesia (AI/Content Technology)
Valuation: ~$1 billion
Synthesia is a leading AI video generation platform that can turn text into realistic video news segments.
Döpfner envisions a future where “text seamlessly transforms into audio and video” with AI assistanceaxelspringer.com, and acquiring Synthesia would give Axel Springer in-house capability to auto-generate video content from articles at scale.
Synthesia recently reached unicorn status (valued around $1 billion).
Owning such technology could accelerate AI-based content production for Bild, Politico, BI, etc., helping increase engagement on Axel Springer’s platforms.
This directly supports pillar 1 by enhancing multimedia journalism through AI.
Outbrain
Valuation: ~$250 million
This is a Pillar 2 play (Advertising/Content Network).
Outbrain is a content recommendation ad platform that places sponsored content and ads on publisher websites.
Outbrain’s tech could strengthen Springer’s monetization of its own digital properties (reducing reliance on Google/Facebook ads).
Buying Outbrain aligns with the “media marketing” pillar by boosting advertising revenue via native content ads.
Goodbye platforms!
Notably, Outbrain is relatively affordable now – it’s a public company with a market cap of only $250 million after stock declines.
Buying Outbrain gives Springer a global network to distribute content and ads, potentially bundling it with Axel Springer’s own inventory (Bild, Insider, etc.) for better economics.
Axel might also look at a few of the companies at the bottom of my list of The 15 Most Likely AI/Media IPOs (by 2025/2026).
Final Takeaways
For Media Executives:
Döpfner's playbook is clear—own the audience, not the algorithm. Platform dependence (Google, Meta, etc.) is weakness.
AI-powered newsrooms are the future. Text-to-video at scale changes everything.
For AI Executives:
Media companies (like Axel Springer) are willing to buy — not just your tools but your entire company.
If your tool is like Captions.ai and Synthesia, and helps create UGC (user-generated content), you might have the next social media network to spin off.
Thanks for reading!
Rob Kelly, Creator & Host of Media & the Machine
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