Graydon Carter’s Newsletter Air Mail Goes Down in the Books as a Bomb — With Sale to Puck Finalized for $16 Million Loss

(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

The longtime editor of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter’s Air Mail digital startup was acquired by Puck this week for a reported figure that is far below what the young company has raised since 2019.

Carter, who had previously pegged the company’s valuation as high as $50 million will be departing Air Mail as part of the deal officially announced on Thursday.

The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Jessica Testa reported that Puck valued Air Mail at $16 million and the sale will be made mostly through Puck stock. The final number is substantially less than the $32 million the digital newsletter has brought in for funding since 2019. In what may now seem like spin, early reports of a possible sale in February of 2024 included figures as high as $50 million, more than three times what the new deal is reportedly worth.

Julia Vitale, the current deputy editor, will step into the role of Air Mail editor with Carter’s co-editor Alessandra Stanley also departing the company.

“We’re beyond thrilled to welcome Air Mail to Puck,” Puck co-founder Jon Kelly said in a statement this week. “Graydon Carter is a titan and trailblazer of our industry and his decades of experience and success—inventing Spy, reinventing The New York Observer, and his heralded quarter century transformation of Vanity Fair into a cultural institution—has shaped Air Mail’s inimitable voice and look. As I know well from experience, Graydon’s greatest talent has been as a mentor and teacher and he has elevated an extraordinarily talented new generation of leaders at Air Mail—starting with its brilliant new editor Julia Vitale.”

“Air Mail was always envisioned as the weekend edition to a digital daily news engine. And in Puck we have the perfect alignment,” Carter said in his own statement.

Most Air Mail employees will reportedly stay on through the deal.

Carter founded Air Mail, a digital magazine for “worldly cosmopolitans,” after a successful run at the helm of Vanity Fair. The company raised $15 million in funding in 2019 and another $17 million in 2021. Carter said in 2023 that the company was still in a “growth stage” as they continued expanding their selection of verticals.

The publication grabbed attention with high-profile cameos from celebrities like Larry David, but failed to turn that into sustained success.

The company has not revealed what subscription prices will look like, but Personette claimed there is little overlap between the company’s subscriber bases. Air Mail currently runs at around $10 a month, while Puck costs $17. The private equity firm TPG and Standard Investments backs both companies.