Firecrown has a portfolio that includes some of the most storied legacy brands in media history – including several that date back a century – but it is not a legacy media company. 

Founded in 2024, Firecrown is moving past the industry’s traditional paradigms to reinvent what’s possible. 

We’re named after the Firecrown hummingbird, one of the most intelligent species of birds. Like the company’s namesake, we are nimble, fierce, move at impossible speeds, and come armed with an insatiable appetite. 

These qualities drive our purpose: to build engaged audiences in marine, aviation, supply chain, and other lifestyles and hobbies, and create multi-dimensional enthusiast ecosystems that feed their purpose.

History 

Although the rebranding to Firecrown took place in 2024, the company’s story really began in July 2021, when FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller acquired FLYING Magazine from Bonnier Corporation. Fuller has been a pilot and FLYING reader since he was 13 years old, and his purchase of FLYING began as a passion project. But he soon realized that there was an opportunity to build a large-scale media business, which was the genesis of FLYING Media Group (FMG). 

Fuller invested heavily in the content and format of FLYING, reviving the brand and making it one of the hottest enthusiast magazines in the world. 

He had learned the power of a content-supported commerce and media brand at FreightWaves, which he founded in late 2016. He realized that a media business that had a large audience could be monetized through non-media opportunities. The media business generated revenue through advertising and was profitable, but also created awareness of and prospects for SONAR, the company’s software-as-a-service offering. 

Although he had never tried content-supported commerce outside of transportation and logistics, Fuller believed it could work in other industries, too.

In January 2022, Fuller decided to launch a real estate development for pilots, using FLYING’s editorial content and distribution to sell the development to the magazine/website audience. Fuller acquired 1,500 acres in the Sequatchie Valley of East Tennessee and designed a luxury fly-in community. 

Many in the FLYING audience loved the concept and millions of dollars of pre-bookings were closed within the first few months. This was proof that the content-supported commerce model could work in many business categories. 

Utilizing this knowledge, Fuller decided to “roll-up” the aviation media industry, and acquire or develop commerce products to offer the aviation audience. Over the next 24 months, FMG acquired nearly 30 aviation media and commerce brands, ranging from print magazines, digital-only websites, continuing education journals, e-commerce stores, aircraft marketplaces, job boards, an aircraft finance business, and an airport designated for real-estate development. 

The acquired businesses could be grown quickly by tapping into the existing audiences and cross-selling across the FMG platform. 

In late 2023, ongoing correspondence between Fuller and the CEO of Bonnier (the magazine publisher that earlier had sold Fuller FLYING), turned to Bonnier’s other lifestyle brands and their potential under the FMG umbrella. A transaction was proposed for Fuller to purchase Bonnier’s recreational marine portfolio, which consisted of industry- leading magazines and media properties focused on boating, fishing, sailing, and yachting.

Fuller agreed, and Bonnier’s marine portfolio became part of the overall FMG business. While the FLYING brand was the perfect name for a company that was solely focused on aviation, the name also limited FMG in regard to non-aviation opportunities. So the company was rebranded as Firecrown.

In February 2024, FreightWaves decided to split its Media and Data businesses, and sold FreightWaves Media to Firecrown in order to focus on the software products that its venture capital investors were most interested in. FreightWaves’ digitally-native media team brought technology and breaking news experience to the rest of the Firecrown brands. 

In May, Firecrown bought Kalmbach’s rail magazines, including Trains, Model Railroader, and others, as well as Astronomy magazine and Kalmbach’s e-commerce stores. In addition to its unparalleled content library, Kalmbach, a privately owned, Waukesha, Wisconsin-based company founded in 1934, had deep expertise in subscription management and publishing that are proving to be incredibly valuable to Firecrown.

Today, Firecrown is the largest media platform in aviation, recreational marine, supply chain, and model railroading. The goal is to replicate the content-to-commerce model in recreational marine that has worked so well in aviation.