[5] The company was established in November 2011 by CEO Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass SB Nation (a sports blog network founded in 2003 by Tyler Bleszinski, Markos Moulitsas, and Jerome Armstrong) and The Verge (a technology news website launched alongside Vox Media).

Vox Media's brands are built on Concert, a marketplace for advertising, and Chorus, its proprietary content management system.

As of 2020,[update] the company operated additional offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, and London.

[9][11] By February 2009, the SB Nation network contained 185 blogs, and in November 2010, Comscore estimated that the site had attracted 5.8 million unique visitors.

[12] The 208% increase in unique visitors over November 2009 made SB Nation the fastest-growing sports website the company tracked at the time.

[12] In 2011, Bankoff hired a number of former writers from AOL's technology blog Engadget, including former editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky, to build a new technology-oriented website in the same network as SB Nation.

[11][13] Alongside this launch, Bankoff and Trei Brundrett created Vox Media as the parent company for both SB Nation and The Verge.

[16] In 2012, Vox Media launched a video gaming website, Polygon, led by former Joystiq editor Christopher Grant.

[19] Led by former Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, Melissa Bell and Matthew Yglesias, Vox was positioned as a general interest news service with a focus on providing additional context to recurring subjects within its articles.

[20] In May 2015, Vox Media acquired Recode, a technology industry news website that was founded by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, the former editors of The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital.

CEO Jim Bankoff stated previously that the company planned to exit native video for Facebook due to "unreliable monetization and promotion".

The memo announcing the layoffs argued that despite its success, native video "won't be viable audience or revenue growth drivers for us relative to other investments we are making", and that the company wanted to focus more on podcasting and Vox Entertainment.

[33] In August 2021, Vox Media announced its purchase of Punch, a mixology website established by Bertelsmann-owned Random House, to undisclosed terms.

Other funders are Allen & Company, Providence Equity Partners, and various angel investors, including Ted Leonsis, Dan Rosensweig, Jeff Weiner, and Brent Jones.

[47] In September 2017, Vox Media was sued by Cheryl Bradley, a former manager of the "Mile High Hockey" site for SB Nation, which covered the Colorado Avalanche team.

[48] Fellow former site managers John Wakefield and Maija Varda were later added to the suit as plaintiffs, and Vox Media unsuccessfully tried to have the case dismissed.

[50] Because this lawsuit could have covered 258 plaintiffs and damages of up to $6.3 million, Vox Media had the suit moved to the United States federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act.

[50] In several cases, plaintiffs represented by the attorney Richard Liebowitz sued Vox Media over copyright infringement claims.

[52] It also owns the online publications Select All, The Strategist, New York Magazine (and its affiliated websites), Daily Intelligencer (up-to-date news), The Cut (fashion and beauty), Grub Street (food and restaurants), and Vulture (pop culture).

[53] Vox Media also previously owned or operated the online publications Racked (retail and shopping) and Recode (technology news).

[57][58] In 2011, the network expanded into technology content with The Verge, leading to the parent company Sports Blogs Inc. being rebranded as Vox Media.

[55] Recode hosts the annual invite-only Code Conference, at which editors of the site interview prominent figures of the technology industry.

The network was founded by Lockhart Steele and Ben Leventhal in 2005, and originally focused on dining and nightlife in New York City.

It further includes several branded sites: Technology industry news website Recode was acquired by Vox Media in May 2015.

[87][88] In 2014, Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell left The Washington Post to join Vox Media, in part because of the publishing platform.

[86] In 2018, Vox Media began to license Chorus as a software as a service (SaaS) business to other publishers,[90] including Funny or Die and The Ringer.

[93] In April 2016, Vox Media and NBCUniversal launched Concert as a "premium, brand-friendly ad network" to reach more than 150 million people across their digital properties.

[103] Vox Entertainment announced new shows in 2018, including American Style on CNN,[104] Explained on Netflix,[105] No Passport Required (hosted by chef Marcus Samuelsson) on PBS,[106] and another named "Glad You Asked" series on YouTube.

[108] In 2016, vice president of Vox Entertainment, Chad Mumm, was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 and Variety's "30 Execs to Watch" list.