MarketBeat: South Dakota’s Largest Digital Media Company
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Attracting 20 million monthly visits, MarketBeat has become a trusted global resource for investors, offering real-time stock data, analyst ratings, advanced search tools, and daily financial news.
Beyond its website, MarketBeat boasts 5.5 million unique email subscribers across 10 financial newsletters, 200,000 SMS subscribers, and 174,000 YouTube followers. The company generated $40 million in revenue in 2024, all with a lean team of just 18 staff members operating from its headquarters on the Cherapa campus in downtown Sioux Falls.
“MarketBeat operates much like a traditional news media company, generating most of our revenue from advertisers,” MarketBeat Founder Matt Paulson said.
The company continues to grow, making it on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States for nine consecutive years. Paulson credits investing in advertising and continuing to improve the value of the services it provides MarketBeat users.
MarketBeat’s Team
With a strong emphasis on its website, much of MarketBeat’s team is dedicated to providing technical and design support for MarketBeat.com. From coding and web design to creating stock search tools, the development team is focused on continuously enhancing the user experience on the site and optimizing interactions with the company’s email newsletters.
Content creation is another key focus for MarketBeat. The company works with a team of 11 freelance writers from nine states and three countries, delivering unique perspectives and in-depth stock analysis and financial news daily, all meticulously reviewed by editors in Sioux Falls. Beyond breaking news, MarketBeat also offers long-form educational content to help retail investors deepen their understanding of the industry.
In the past two years, MarketBeat has expanded into video content with a growing YouTube channel, producing daily long-form videos from its in-house studio. The channel has become a valuable lead source, generating over 9.5 million views and introducing a new audience to MarketBeat’s tools and services.
Sustained Growth through Emphasis on Core Values
One of MarketBeat’s core values is automation, which allows its lean team of developers and content creators to efficiently manage and grow a dynamic, multi-platform digital company.
“With our small team, MarketBeat is generating more revenue and producing more content than many financial media firms that have five or even ten times the staff,” Paulson said.
MarketBeat’s success lies in staying focused on its strengths. Paulson says the company prioritizes improving what it already does well, rather than constantly pursuing new ventures. By making data-driven decisions to identify projects with the greatest payoff, the media company continues to grow while keeping overhead costs low.
“While our company may have a small team, we also have a strong commitment to improving culture and compensation that helps attract world-class talent,” MarketBeat VP of Finance Arin Gonseth said.
A survey of thousands of workers across the country revealed MarketBeat as one of the highest-scoring companies in Inc.’s annual Best Workplaces list. The company’s focus on fun, flexibility and work/life balance have helped create a team of passionate employees who are excited about contributing to the success of the entire MarketBeat team.
History
It’s a growth story Paulson only dreamed of creating when the idea for his financial newsletter first began in his Dakota State dorm room back in 2006. Over the years, the company has had a few name changes and rebranding, starting as American Consumer News, incorporating under the name Analyst Ratings Network in 2011, and finally rebranding to MarketBeat in 2015.
As the company’s brand recognition grew across the country, so did its relationship with search. Paulson worked to optimize the entire MarketBeat website for search, helping the website to earn favor with Google. This became especially evident during the pandemic stock market crash of 2020 when MarketBeat’s content and market data tools continued to achieve high rankings on Google search, helping to accelerate the company’s growth.
Giving Back
As MarketBeat’s success has grown, so has its giving. The company started a philanthropy committee in 2023, giving team members the opportunity to review nonprofit applications and select community projects to financially support each quarter. MarketBeat also added individual volunteer time off for every employee and group service projects every quarter to continue fostering a spirit of giving back as a core part of the company.
Along with the large volume of quarterly philanthropic grants, MarketBeat is also becoming increasingly known around Sioux Falls for sponsoring large community projects. From the MarketBeat Holiday Plaza, to the MarketBeat Open Tennis Tournament, the MarketBeat theater inside Startup Sioux Falls, renovations to the Pavilion’s Science Center, presenting sponsor of Levitt at the Falls and now the Lallycooler Music festival, the MarketBeat brand is hard to miss across Sioux Falls.
Future Goals
Paulson does not plan on slowing down MarketBeat’s growth anytime soon. He and his team continue to set yearly and quarterly goals, focused on improving and growing the company. In 2025, he hopes to grow MarketBeat’s email list to six million subscribers and grow revenue to nearly $50 million, all by focusing on excellence and getting better at the things MarketBeat is already doing. Goals he hopes will not only benefit his company, but the entire Sioux Falls community.
“If we grow MarketBeat from a $40M/year company to a $50M/year company, we’ll be able to do more big community projects, pay our employees more, hire more people and invest in more local businesses,” Paulson said.