Sequoia Capital Mubi Investment Underlines Blurring of Tech and Media

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Last week, Sequoia Capital invested $100 million in Mubi. A Silicon Valley venture capital firm investing in a UK-based indie film streaming service is as good a demonstration as any of how technology has collided with media and culture. (Almost like someone should write a newsletter, or even a book, about this space…)

Tech firms and investors want to have a cultural relevance that goes beyond making the hardware and software that we use every minute of the day. Andrew Reed, the Sequoia partner who led the investment, told the Financial Times that his firm is “a Silicon Valley investor, so the question is, how many people around the world will projects like this resonate with? Our opinion is that this is going to resonate with a lot more people than anybody thinks,” which rather makes the point.

Sequoia Capital And How Media and Tech Converged

Whether it is Amazon and Apple launching streaming services and making award-winning film and TV, or Netflix developing its AI infrastructure, the gap between what is a media firm and a tech firm is getting ever smaller. Perhaps the main distinguishing factor is which bit the companies actually care about making money from. While they obviously do not like losing money, Apple and Amazon are not going to live or die by TV+ and Prime Video. Similarly, Netflix wants to have good tech infrastructure, such as AI tools that improve the viewing and discovery experience. However, it is dependent on the quality of the content above everything else.

Clearly, investors such as Sequoia Capital, which previously put money into startups that have become some of the world’s biggest tech firms, are realising there is not as much of a gap between Silicon Valley and Hollywood as there once was. According to Reed, “Mubi is high-growth and profitable, and in the film business that’s an impossibly rare combination.” I also think that despite the reputation for wearing hoodies and jeans, the tech types rather like the glamour of awards ceremonies, film festivals and premieres, the type of things those in film and TV tend to get. While I’m sure that isn’t what convinced some top VCs to hand over $100 million, it’s certainly a nice perk.

Whatever the motivations, the lines between tech and media are only going to become more blurred, and it will be one of the stories I continue to follow here on The Addition. I do also go into this in more depth in Streaming Wars, my new book, which is out in the UK on October 3, and available to pre-order now.