Group Black launched with a bold plan to boost the fortunes of Black-owned media businesses. Now, it’s pivoting to focus on a wider audience with the launch of a new venture, Portrait Media Group.
Bonin Bough, Group Black’s cofounder and chief strategy officer, described Portrait Media Group in a Tuesday LinkedIn post as a “people and AI-powered media company built for and by Gen Next” that helps marketers target people based on their values and behaviors rather than their race or ethnicity.
He said Gen Next “includes Black, Latin, Asian, and multi-ethnic audiences and values-driven white consumers who are shaping what comes next in media and marketing.”
Bough’s post suggests the company will announce more details on September 8, when “the frame comes into full focus.” He also said Group Black would become Group Black Holdings.
Business Insider contacted Group Black last week for comment on the Portrait Media Group repositioning and other recent changes. The company requested until Tuesday morning to give answers, but didn’t provide a comment.
Group Black launched in 2021 in the wake of the George Floyd protests, which sparked a national reckoning. Big advertisers, including Coca-Cola and Walmart, had publicly pledged to boost their spending with Black-owned media, which then accounted for less than 1% of overall ad spending.
Group Black was the most prominent member of a cohort of companies at the time working to steer ad dollars to Black-led media. Launched by a who’s who of Black advertising and media figures, including entrepreneur Richelieu Dennis and Bough, Group Black secured a $75 million target media investment from the ad buying giant GroupM. (GroupM later rebranded as WPP Media. A WPP Media spokesperson declined to comment on whether the partnership remains active.)
The launch of Portrait Media Group is the latest twist for Group Black, which has faced a mix of internal struggles and broader market challenges. According to PQ Media, the share of advertising going to multicultural media remained largely unchanged from 2018 to 2023.
Since Group Black’s launch, two of the three founders have left, a string of executives and board members have departed, and a significant partnership with NBCUniversal is now winding down, Business Insider has learned.
When it launched in 2021, Group Black pledged to direct $500 million in ad dollars to Black-owned media. Bough told Ad Age that the company had fallen short of that goal. He said in his LinkedIn post that Portrait Media Group represented an evolution rather than an abandonment of its foundation.
Group Black’s business model faced a tough market
Group Black’s core business model centered on selling advertising across Black-owned media properties and channeling ad dollars to Black-led media on platforms like NBCUniversal streamer Peacock. The company would take a cut of the revenue. NBCU has said that more than 30 brands signed on to the partnership in its first year.
Beyond Peacock, Group Black had deals to produce content with Procter & Gamble for Fox’s streaming service Tubi and Everyday Health.
Group Black also planned to acquire media companies with the pledged ad dollars.
After Group Black launched, the political environment drastically shifted. Many major companies scaled back or ended their DEI programs following pressure from conservative activists and lawsuits. A Washington Post analysis found the typical S&P 500 company mentioned DEI four times in public filings in 2024, down from a peak of 12.5 in 2022.
The ad dollars pledged to Group Black were slow to come in, and the company also struggled to offer advertisers large enough audiences at low enough prices, several former employees and advertisers previously told Business Insider. Various outlets reported that Group Black bid to acquire media companies, including Paramount-owned BET, Vice Media, and Vox Media, but none of those deals materialized.
NBCUniversal’s agreement with Group Black, which gave Group Black exclusive rights to sell ads in Black-led shows on NBCU’s streamer, Peacock, is set to expire at the end of September, a person with direct knowledge said. After that, NBCU will handle sales of the content directly, this person added.
Foreshadowing the current repositioning, Group Black had started last year to broaden its offer to include other minority audiences and women.
A series of exits
Group Black faced other problems besides a tough market, people close to the company said.
Some publishers that Group Black said would benefit from its partnerships previously told Business Insider that the company took an atypically high cut of the revenue from those deals and that they didn’t get the business-building support or networking benefits they’d expected from the arrangement.
A string of executives have left Group Black, including, earlier this year, Cavel Khan, a Twitter and Vice Media vet who joined in 2022 and became Group Black’s chief growth officer in 2023. A person with direct knowledge said he will remain an advisor to the company. Khan declined to comment.
Cofounder Travis Montaque quietly left his role as CEO in June 2024.
Montaque’s latest project is a media company called Mucho, three people close to him said. Mucho describes itself on its website as a bilingual, video-first media company aimed at amplifying Gen Z Hispanic voices across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and a channel inside NBCU’s Peacock. Montaque declined to comment.
Dennis, another cofounder, left more than a year and a half ago and has been focusing on his own venture, Sundial Technology & Media Group. Dennis couldn’t be reached for comment.
A trio of high-profile corporate executives who sat on Group Black’s board stepped down last summer after Montaque left, two people familiar with the matter said. They are former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, former Moët Hennessy North America CEO Seth Kaufman, and Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah, whose company had invested $15 million in Group Black.
Four people familiar with the company said Group Black had conducted layoffs in recent months. Business Insider was unable to determine the scope of the job cuts.
Group Black has faced lawsuits
Amid executive and board departures, Group Black was hit with two lawsuits over the past year from former associates.
In an October 2024 suit filed in New York, two companies owned by Essence Ventures, which is part of cofounder Dennis’ Sundial, sued Group Black. They alleged that Group Black owed them about $20 million and improperly used those funds to enrich Group Black and Holler, a media company founded by Montaque. Group Black said in a court filing that Essence loaned it money but otherwise denied the suit’s allegations. The suit is ongoing.
A separate suit filed in a New York court in May by Audiomob, an advertising agency partner that provided mobile app advertising inventory for Group Black to sell to its clients, demanded about $181,000 from Group Black for invoices it alleged the company had failed to pay “despite multiple demands.” Audiomob’s lawyers applied to dismiss the case in August, saying Group Black had made a “partial payment” of the money owed, per court filings. The suit was terminated in August, according to the court docket. Audiomob declined to comment.
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