The IAC Story: Building and Spinning Off Internet Brands
IAC has owned Ask.com, Match Group, Dotdash Meredith, and Angi. Its business model is simple and unusual: buy digital brands, build them up, then spin them off. Here is how it works.
Few companies have shaped the internet's consumer landscape as quietly and persistently as IAC. Over three decades, IAC and its predecessor entities have owned, built, and spun off brands that hundreds of millions of people use daily, including Match.com, Tinder, Vimeo, Angi, Ask.com, Investopedia, Dotdash, and the combined digital media empire now called Dotdash Meredith.
The company's model is deliberate and unusual. IAC does not set out to hold businesses forever. It acquires or incubates internet companies, grows them, and then returns them to shareholders as independent public companies through tax-efficient spin-offs. The result is a corporate history that reads less like a traditional company and more like a revolving door of internet brands.
This post traces how IAC built that model, what it currently owns, and what the history of its spin-offs reveals about how digital brands are created and separated.
What Is IAC?
IAC Inc. is a publicly traded American internet holding company headquartered in New York City. The company trades on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IAC. As of early 2026, IAC's primary operating asset is Dotdash Meredith, the largest digital and print magazine publisher in the United States.
IAC's origins trace to Silver King Communications, a television broadcasting company built by Barry Diller in the early 1990s. Diller transformed the company through a series of acquisitions, purchasing the Home Shopping Network in 1992 and renaming the combined entity USA Networks. Subsequent acquisitions brought in Ticketmaster, Hotels.com, Expedia, and a collection of internet businesses. In 2005, Diller separated the travel businesses into an independent company called InterActiveCorp Travel (later renamed Expedia Group), retaining the internet businesses under the IAC/InterActiveCorp name, shortened over time to simply IAC.
Barry Diller remains the controlling shareholder of IAC, holding voting control through a dual-class share structure. His operating partner and the architect of much of IAC's current direction is Joey Levin, who served as CEO through 2024.
The Spin-Off Machine: IAC's Core Model
Understanding IAC requires understanding the spin-off playbook that has defined the company's strategy since the mid-2000s.
The sequence works as follows. IAC acquires or internally develops an internet business that has scale potential. It invests in growth, often funding losses in the near term to accelerate user acquisition. Once the business has reached a size where it can operate independently and has demonstrated financial viability, IAC distributes shares to its own shareholders via a tax-free spin-off. The spun-off company trades on public markets as an independent entity. IAC retains focus and capital for its remaining businesses and typically acquires new ones.
This model has produced several major public companies:
Expedia Group (spun off 2005): The online travel marketplace became one of the largest travel booking platforms in the world. Expedia Group now owns Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, and Orbitz.
Match Group (spun off 2015, full separation 2020): IAC launched Match.com in 1995 and subsequently built a portfolio of dating applications including Tinder (launched internally in 2012), OkCupid (acquired 2011), Hinge (acquired 2018), and Plenty of Fish (acquired 2015). Match Group was taken public in 2015 and fully separated from IAC in 2020 through a spin-off valued at approximately $4 billion at the time of execution. Match Group is now a standalone NASDAQ-listed company.
Vimeo (spun off 2021): The video hosting platform acquired by IAC in 2006 for approximately $200 million was built into a software-as-a-service business targeting professional video creators and corporate communications teams. Vimeo was spun off in 2021 as a standalone public company.
Angi Inc. (spun off April 2025): IAC had merged HomeAdvisor and Angie's List in 2017 to create Angi, a marketplace connecting homeowners with home service professionals. In April 2025, IAC completed the spin-off of its remaining stake in Angi, which began trading as an independent NASDAQ-listed company.
Dotdash Meredith: The Current Core
Following the Angi spin-off in April 2025, IAC's primary operating asset is Dotdash Meredith, the digital and print publishing business formed through IAC's 2021 acquisition of Meredith Corporation.
Dotdash was IAC's existing digital media publishing portfolio, which had been built through acquisitions of About.com (rebranded as Dotdash in 2017) and a collection of informational websites including Investopedia, The Balance, Verywell Health, Verywell Mind, TheSpruce, and AllRecipes. These sites operate on a performance model, earning revenue primarily through search traffic and display advertising rather than through subscription or paywalled content.
The 2021 acquisition of Meredith Corporation for approximately $2.7 billion added a substantial print and digital media portfolio including People, Better Homes & Gardens, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, EatingWell, Travel + Leisure, and more than 30 other magazine brands. The combined Dotdash Meredith entity became the largest digital publisher in the United States by traffic in several key lifestyle and health categories.
The integration of Dotdash and Meredith has been complex. IAC has shut down print editions of several former Meredith magazines, shifting focus to digital-only formats, and has restructured the business around performance-driven digital content rather than the legacy print advertising model. Dotdash Meredith generated approximately $1.8 billion in revenue in 2024, representing a meaningful decline from the combined pre-integration revenues as the print business contracted.
The Ask.com Era and What It Reveals
Ask.com (originally Ask Jeeves) was one of IAC's most significant internet assets during the mid-2000s. Acquired in 2005, Ask.com was the fourth-largest search engine in the United States at the time of purchase, trailing Google, Yahoo, and MSN. IAC invested heavily in rebuilding Ask.com as a Google competitor, spending more than $100 million annually on television advertising at the peak of its investment.
Ask.com never meaningfully closed the gap with Google. By 2010, its search market share had declined to low single digits, and IAC had effectively stopped investing in the product as a competitive search engine. The brand was retained as a question-and-answer content site and affiliate of Google's search advertising network, which meant IAC earned revenue by routing search queries to Google results. Ask.com was sold to investment firm Barry Diller's former employer Activision's parent in 2019 to IAC non-core asset management.
The Ask.com story is instructive. IAC's model works best when the businesses it holds have structural competitive advantages or network effects that compound over time. Dating apps (Match Group) and informational content sites (Dotdash) fit this model. A search engine competing directly against Google with no structural differentiation does not.
IAC's Investment in MGM and Other Holdings
Beyond Dotdash Meredith, IAC holds a minority stake in MGM Resorts International, acquired in 2020 for approximately $1 billion when MGM's stock price was depressed by the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on casino revenues. IAC's stake has generated substantial unrealized gains as MGM's stock recovered.
IAC also holds periodic early-stage investments in internet and technology companies through its corporate venture activities. These positions are generally smaller and less visible than the operating businesses.
As of early 2026, IAC has signaled continued focus on Dotdash Meredith's operational performance, including efforts to stabilize revenue as digital advertising markets remain competitive and print revenues continue to decline. The company has indicated that further spin-offs remain possible once operating businesses reach appropriate scale and maturity.
How IAC Compares to Traditional Media Companies
IAC's approach to media brands differs fundamentally from traditional publishers like Hearst or Conde Nast, which have historically held their magazine brands indefinitely and derived competitive advantage from print circulation and advertiser relationships built over decades.
IAC treats media brands as performance assets: their value is measured in organic search traffic, user engagement metrics, and advertising revenue per page view. The Dotdash model involves aggressive search engine optimization, content reformatting to match search intent, and elimination of advertising units or editorial formats that reduce engagement metrics. Some traditional media critics have argued this approach prioritizes algorithm performance over editorial quality. IAC has responded that performance-driven publishing is the only sustainable model in the current digital advertising environment.
The integration challenges at Dotdash Meredith, where IAC merged performance-optimized digital properties with legacy print brands, reflect the tension between these two approaches to media.
Frequently Asked Questions About IAC
What does IAC own in 2026? As of early 2026, IAC's primary operating asset is Dotdash Meredith, the largest digital and print publisher in the United States with brands including People, Better Homes & Gardens, Investopedia, Verywell Health, and AllRecipes. IAC also holds a minority stake in MGM Resorts International.
Is IAC publicly traded? Yes. IAC Inc. trades on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IAC. Barry Diller retains voting control through a dual-class share structure.
What companies has IAC spun off? IAC has spun off Expedia Group (2005), Match Group (full separation 2020), Vimeo (2021), and Angi Inc. (April 2025). Each became an independent publicly traded company following the spin-off.
Does IAC own Match.com and Tinder? IAC founded Match.com in 1995 and created Tinder internally in 2012. Both brands are now owned by Match Group, which was fully separated from IAC in 2020. IAC no longer holds a stake in Match Group.
Who controls IAC? Barry Diller, the media executive who built IAC from Silver King Communications in the early 1990s, controls IAC through Class B super-voting shares. Despite holding a minority of the economic interest, Diller retains majority voting control over the company.
Explore Related Brands
- Investopedia - Financial education site, part of Dotdash Meredith
- Vimeo - Video platform, spun off from IAC in 2021
- Dotdash Meredith - IAC's primary operating company
- People Magazine - Celebrity news brand owned by Dotdash Meredith
Browse all Media & Entertainment brands
Sources
1. IAC Investor Relations — https://ir.iac.com 2. IAC Q4 2025 Earnings Release — https://ir.iac.com/news-releases 3. SEC EDGAR: IAC Inc. 10-K Annual Report — https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar 4. IAC Spin-Off of Angi Press Release, April 2025 — https://ir.iac.com 5. Wikidata: IAC Inc. — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1641068 6. Bloomberg: Dotdash Meredith acquisition coverage — https://www.bloomberg.com
All brand ownership data verified through WhoBrands.com research. Last verified: March 2026.
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