Stockbait? BuzzFeed announces IPO as clicks and videos keep public hooked

Chief executive Jonah Peretti has not offered a timeline for the move, but investors will want to know after site was valued at $850m in August

BuzzFeed is planning an IPO, the company's CEO, Jonah Peretti, announced at a tech conference on Wednesday. It's a long-expected move from the wildly popular site, which in recent years has moved from simple aggregation and funny listicles into video, hard political news and arts coverage. Peretti didn't say when the IPO would happen, but investors are likely to want to know soon.

BuzzFeed's mix of serious news articles and videos and sponsored content has led detractors, including Noam Chomsky, to criticise the company's business model. More than once recently, BuzzFeed's sponsors have demanded the removal of editorial content - and gotten their way. Consumers don't seem to mind: the company's videos boast a billion views a month, it told audiences in its annual presentation to prospective (and established) advertisers in Manhattan in April. And it produced more than 1,800 of those videos in the last 12 months.

Related: Vox Media taking over tech site ReCode amid digital media shakeup