In our first report on media-for-equity released in 2021, we have taken a closer look at all the media-for-equity investments that happened and were happening in Europe.
This report explores a global view of the media-for-equity investment model. We have analyzed 793 media-for-equity investments worldwide in regions such as North America, South America, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore).
We have talked with experts from these regions to understand how different the media infrastructure and regulations are in all these countries and how the adoption of media-for-equity investments happened in these regions.
2.1. Snapshot of media-for-equity investments worldwide
Total number of media-for-equity investments completed since 2000
We have analyzed the 793 startups that have completed at least one media-for-equity deal since the start of the century worldwide, although there are over 1,000 investments in total. Some 168 investments have been reviewed by the investors, while the rest appear in their portfolios. Let's look at the geography of the media-for-equity investments we have analyzed from 2000 until today. We can state the following:
The majority of the investments were made in Europe:
In North America there have been 86 media-for-equity investments made from 2000 up until 2022:
In Central and South America there have been 46 media-for-equity investments made:
In Israel there have been 6 investments made.
In Africa, media-for-equity investments were made through European media-for-equity investments:
In India, there are currently more than 1,000 media-for-equity investments.
In Southeast Asia, we have identified the following number of investments:
In Australia, there have been 23 media-for-equity investments.
2.2. The global state of media-for-equity in 2022
Market: India
Media industry overview
India has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. It is projected to grow by 6.4% in 2022 and become the largest economy in the region. With a population of over 1.38bn, India also represents a vast, rich, and multicultural ground for the media market.
Traditional media — TV, radio, print, out-of-home (OOH) — is still dominant in the Indian market: the value of the print industry has risen from 160bn rupees ($3.6bn at the time) in 2007 to 308bn rupees ($4.5bn) in 2017, growing at a rate of 90% over the span of a decade, while most recent studies have shown that the TV penetration rate is 69%, with an average of 210 minutes/day of watching.
While internet penetration is 47%, digital media is growing in the country. Indian internet users spend an average of 420 minutes on the internet daily, double the time spent watching TV. However, the majority of these internet users are 12-29 years old, and internet penetration for this age group peaks at around 34%. Those aged 30+ are likely to spend more time consuming traditional media than younger people. Moreover, internet penetration for those over-30s peaks at around 20%, going as low as 6% for those aged 50+. Since 67% of the population is aged 14-64, the Indian market is unlikely to see any major shift in the balance between traditional and digital media this decade.
Growth in ad spending characterizes the Indian media market. Ad spending grew by 10.8% in 2021 to reach $9bn. TV led with a 40.9% share of spend. Digital’s share of spending has seen a growth of 29.4% in 2021 and is expected to reach 32.7% by the end of 2022 (5). The ad market is forecasted to grow by a further 12.4% in 2022, driven largely by digital and TV, while a longer recovery in ad spending is foreseen for print (24%), cinema, OOH (2%), and radio (2%). Spending in the video advertising segment is projected to reach $1.04bn in 2022.
Multiculturalism is the keyword in the Indian media market. Traditional and digital media are both relevant in terms of consumption. Regionally, print has continued to grow over the past decade and is recovering quickly to pre-Covid levels. Over-the-top (OTT) media has become relevant to the regions as the internet becomes more widely available. While both forms of media are expected to remain relevant to the market, digital’s share of spend is forecast to rise to 43.6% by 2025, with a slow but sure transition towards digital media content expected.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and investment activity overview.
The most notable characteristic of the Indian market is its multicultural and diverse approach. Media is created in multiple regional languages to reach as big an audience as possible, and advertising through media follows the same system: media campaigns are run in different languages specific to certain regions. This strategy enables maximum reach to a multicultural population.
Based on the market and demographics, media-for-equity would be the best investment model for a company looking to establish its brand in India. Media-for-equity uses platforms such as TV, radio, print, OOH, and various digital media channels to help the company succeed in the market based on its preferred KPIs. Traditional media is still consumed by the Indian population, while digital media would introduce the company to the younger generations in specific regions.
Media-for-equity has been around in India since the early 2000s. Media groups such as The Times Group India have created dedicated investment vehicles such as Brand Capital International to help both Indian and non-Indian companies enter the Indian market.
Fund profile:
Brand Capital International
Brand Capital International is the strategic investment arm of The Times Group of India, the country’s largest media conglomerate.
Neville Taraporewalla is the President of Brand Capital International, and Sivakumar Sundaram is the CEO of Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd., offering media-for-equity deals to Indian and global companies looking to launch their products and services on the Indian market.
It started in the 1990s as Strategic Marketing Initiatives, a name that suggested what was to come. It then became Private Treaties and finally Brand Capital International.
The group’s media, branding expertise, and intellectual capital help entrepreneurs with the intricacies of the advertising business to plan and build effective corporate branding strategies that lead to growth and enterprise value creation(4).
The innovative idea was to leverage the brand-building power of The Times Group’s advertising properties to build value for emerging startups and high-growth companies. While companies can acquire funding for growth and working capital, brand-building investments rarely attract interest from the funding community. This is especially true for brands that are new category creators — because the brand investment in such cases needs to be large and sustainable compared to the hard asset investments.
Brand Capital now partners with over 1,000 investee companies across sectors as wide as retail, FMCG, consumer durables, realty, digital and mobile, financial and consumer services, and several more. Since the inception of this business a decade ago, the company has helped build several iconic brands in India, and its investment value today is close to $4bn.
Location:
Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkatta, San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Austin, Singapore
Unicorns:
4+ (Byju’s, Flipkart, Myntra, Big Basket, and others)
Case Studies
Market: North America
Media industry overview
Media in North America in 2022 can be seen as being at a crossroads from a generational perspective. Traditional and digital media are consumed and engaged in the region’s socio-political matters but are used to target different demographics.
Media in North America in 2022 can be seen as being at a crossroads from a generational perspective. Traditional and digital media are consumed and engaged in the region’s socio-political matters but are used to target different demographics. Traditional media panders to the older generations of Americans. With an average time of 313 minutes/day watching TV, listening to the radio, or reading newspapers, traditional media’s main audience is older persons: 54% of people aged 50-64 years old and 68% of people aged 65+ years old are watching TV daily. Overall, TV is still a dominant force in the US media market across all generations. It reaches 43% of the population daily, with 122mn people watching an average of three hours daily. As in the case of CNN+, TV stations are trying to adapt to the digital times by launching OTT solutions to their already traditional TV channels. Radio clocks in at an average of 95 minutes daily and are seeing a slight decrease in consumption each year.
Digital media consumption is predominantly done by teenagers and young adults (Gen Z and Millennials.) There has been a slow but effective shifting of adults aged 45+ towards digital media, especially with social media platforms such as Facebook. Digital media has seen three triggers: the first is the .com trigger that happened in early 2000, which saw people being curious about the new form of communication, and the internet, which was still new at the time. The second trigger, the economic recession of 2008-10, prompted the popularization of social media platforms. The third trigger, the Covid-19 pandemic, has increased the popularity of video content. The US’ internet penetration is at 89.4%, and digital media panders more to the younger generations than traditional media. In 2022, on average, Americans spend 490 minutes/day on the internet. There are 307mn active internet users and 270mn active on social media. Some 99% of people aged 18-29 and 98% of those aged 30-49 have access to the internet, making digital media the dominant media engaged by Millennials and Gen Z. Moreover, the strong push of digital media in the North American space is also seen in the 44.8% share of ad spend in 2021, when media ad spend in the US reached $240bn.
In the same year, TV, radio, print, and outdoor ad spending reached $83.3bn. On this note, cinema, the US’ largest traditional media export, has reached a growth in spending of 35% in 2021 alone. Digital media is bound to become the leading form of media in the US. Approximately 70% of the advertising market is dominated by digital media platforms — Facebook, Google, Amazon, and others — while the rest is shared between traditional platforms.
Even if demographics are divided regarding traditional and digital media, video content platforms, such as TikTok, will become the region's largest form of digital media. Amazon, Google, and Meta will continue to change the landscape of media ad spending in the US. Digital media will likely become the central focus of ad spending, with projections as high as 90% of dollars spent on digital advertising. As the demographics become more willing to embrace OTT platforms, media groups — independent or corporate — will be faced with a decision of whether to adopt, launch, and operate their own OTT subsidiaries.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
In the US market, specific law regulations from bodies such as the Federal Communication Commission forbid any media group from owning multiple media properties in a media market. A specific media market must be defined first by its main media channel (for example, the TV market or the radio market), which encompasses a radius of approximately 60 miles. TV is the only media allowed in the TV market. The law is unique for the region and has impacted the US ad industry.
Even so, the digital media market — with platforms such as Amazon, Google, and Meta — is introducing new methods and reshaping the advertising industry. Different regions will be defined by demographics that prefer certain media. Rural areas tend to stick to TV, radio, and the most known social media platforms, such as Facebook and Youtube, while the urban areas are increasingly using other platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram), as well as using the internet as a go-to platform for entertainment, information and more.
It is understandable that a model such as media-for-equity would not be adopted right away, given the volatility of the US media landscape, and the legislation regarding traditional media advertising makes it difficult to implement in the region. However, we have noticed that US media conglomerates, such as Comcast-NBCUniversal, have done media-for-equity deals in Europe through their affiliate media networks with Sky TV and its investment arm, Sky Ventures.
A US media-for-equity investment fund would have to adapt its strategy to each region and its specificities. For example, urban spaces would be more open to digital media and advertising, while rural areas tend to stick with TV or radio for news and commercial advertisements. A media-for-equity fund would have to provide insight and ways to model their client’s needs to each of these regions.
Arrandale Ventures is a VC firm founded in 2019 in New York, NY. The firm invests in early-stage startups by exchanging marketing and customer acquisition services for equity. Arrandale Ventures provides its services through a network of media partners comprising over 4,000 print, radio, TV, outdoor, and digital media outlets Their portfolio includes startups such as TenantBase, Mightier, and Minibar Delivery, which was acquired in 2021 resulting in Arrandale’s first exit.
As a dedicated fund that aggregates media holdings from many different partners, Arrandale Ventures’ media-for equity fund is the first of its kind in the US. The idea is very similar to the European model of media-for-equity investments: investing in companies unrelated to media, but using its partners’ media outlets to promote its portfolio companies. The Arrandale model is especially well suited for startups that have already achieved product-market fit and can effectively capitalize on a big push to a broad consumer audience.
The fund helps its portfolio companies develop marketing plans to fit their specific strategic goals and then handles the execution of those plans on the companies’ behalfs. Startups are only responsible for producing the creative, with the option to work with one of Arrandale’s agency partners to develop the content. While Arrandale is available to provide advice and support, the startups retain full control of their marketing strategy and spending decisions.
Clearco, a company based in Canada, offers a different kind of media-for-equity deal: digital advertising in exchange for revenue sharing (with no equity taken); so the model here is similar in idea to media-for-revenue, but instead of traditional media, they use digital media and offer advertorial capital to companies to grow direct revenue streams.
Since its founding year, 2015, the company has managed to raise a staggering amount of $434mn, having investors such as Softbank, Founders Fund, Real Ventures, and Social Capital on their cap table, among others. They offer digital advertising deals in exchange for revenue sharing.
Clearco invests from $10,000 to $10mn in growing online companies on a revenue share. According to their website, they provide the capital to grow and are paid a percentage of revenue until they are paid back, plus a 6-12% fee.
It has expanded internationally, in Ireland, Germany, the UK, Australia, and the US, and has achieved a valuation of over $2bn.
Global Media Fund was a New York-based investment fund that has made media-for-equity deals. Founded in 2008, it offered millions of dollars worth of advertising against the company’s stock as the primary payment currency.
The fund’s services included promoting a company’s products or brands through 10,250 newspapers and 6,000 radio stations besides national TV, internet, email campaigns, exposure in trade magazines apart from press releases, and wire services in the US (28).
As per
India Times, typically, it strikes deals with companies whose media campaign budgets range from $1mn-25mn. These campaigns run for two years. The fund also has an innovative option where the payment can be rolled over in installments, allowing a target company to take advantage of an increase in shareholder value by paying a set value of the restricted stock.
In the North American space at the time, media-for-equity was still a very new concept. Global Media Fund managed to get involved in media awareness campaigns with big names such as Fidelity Investments, NASDAQ, Merrill Lynch, AOL, Merck, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Disney, T Rowe Price, Colgate-Palmolive, and Coca-Cola. It is no longer active.
Case Studies
Market: Europe
Europe is the point of origin of the media-for-equity investment model, so in this chapter, we focus on mapping all the European countries that have implemented media-for-equity in one way or another.
Our research shows that several European media-for-equity investment funds have invested in companies in European countries, including Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Serbia, to name a few. In contrast, other funds have made media-for-equity investments in African countries, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, and Nigeria.
Since our last whitepaper in 2021, several other media-for-equity investment pools have been founded; we have created a media-for-equity investment map in Europe and describe each model according to its respective country.
UK
Media industry overview
In the UK, the media landscape is evolving to suit the younger generations better. Traditional media is not being entirely left behind, but it is starting to lose its dominant position, while digital media is seeing steady growth.
On average, the British population watches TV for 192 minutes/day and listens to the radio for 210 minutes/day. The Covid-19 pandemic has seen a resurgence in watching linear TV as more people spend time at home consuming content. Prime time viewership had a peak growth of 24% in 2020 but declined the following year. The UK also spends an average of 42 minutes/day reading print media.
On the other hand, digital media platforms are gaining increasing popularity. Internet penetration is 94%, at over 87% in the 55-64 age range and 100% in the 16-34 age range. This has led to an increase in the popularity of social media in the last decade. Social media and video content consumption have grown over the last two years in all age groups, with 335 minutes of digital media consumed daily. Moreover, the British population is using on average 5.3 services for OTT video services, a preference that has grown since the pandemic began: the BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub both have over 30mn users; Netflix has over 13mn users in the country, and Amazon Prime Video has around 5mn users.
UK media giants such as the BBC and ITV have successfully launched their own OTT platforms to adapt to their growing popularity. More and more on-demand services have entered the market recently, and people tend to watch content from more than one source. The ad spend numbers reinforce this trend. Subscription video-on-demand ad spend was £2.1bn ($2.35bn) in 2021, and £732mn for broadcaster video-on-demand. Radio ad spending was valued at £718mn in 2021, print ad spending was valued at £1.46bn in 2020, and online video ad spending is valued at around £3.43bn. Ad spending in 2022 is forecast to grow by 8.5%, with digital driving 70.5% of overall growth.
Internet penetration is expected to reach 100% in all age groups by 2027. With it, linear TV will release OTT alternatives with a goal of adaptability, and digital ad spending will grow in the following years. Video content will become the dominant media in terms of consumption in the UK.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Channel 5 was the first TV station to complete a media-for-equity deal when it invested in
Firebox £850,000 worth of
airtime in 2001. Channel 5 aired ads for gadgets sold by Firebox that were yet to be invented. In the same year, Firebox struck a deal with Dennis Publishing, which gave the online shop media inventory to use for marketing purposes in exchange for equities.
That first media investment propelled Firebox to close similar deals with Warner Brothers Studio, which consisted of the items merchandised by Firebox being sold in the Warner Brothers Studio stores. Launched in 1998, Firebox is still active today, registering annual revenue of £10mn in 2019.
Channel 5 made several similar media-for-equity investments, focusing on shops such as Cheeky Monkey, while also striking deals with travel agencies such as thefirstresort.com (now latedeals.co.uk, focusing on last-minute holidays).
Radio broadcaster GWR FM — now rebranded and part of the Heart network — traded airtime for equity in a deal with countyweb.com.
However, by the start of the new decade, airtime-for-equity started losing importance in the UK business world. The model would see a revival in the next decade as Channel 4 founded one of the most significant media-for-equity investment companies, the Channel 4 Commercial Growth Fund, now known as Channel 4 Ventures.
Currently, unused media space or just media space/inventory is being relocated into media-for-equity deals. In 2022, Channel 4 Ventures, ITV AdVentures, Sky Venture, UKTV Ventures, DMG Ventures, and N&S Ventures are operating on media-for-equity deals in the UK.
Founded in 2014 as the Channel 4 Commercial Growth Fund, it recently changed its name to
Channel 4 Ventures. It offers high-potential brands the opportunity to accelerate their growth through TV advertising in exchange for an equity stake in the business (29).
Some of the most important deals that Channel 4 Ventures have made were with Meatless Farm Co., Pinterest, Travel Local, SportPursuit, Currency Fair, Rated People, Festicket, Job Today, Hussle, Drover, Readly, and
many more.
Many of these startups, such as Pinterest, are internet-based companies, and the deals have increased their potential reach mainly through TV advertising.
For new-to-TV brands, they recommend a range of £250,000-500,000 for a test campaign. They recommend that £1mn offerings offer more tangible, longer-term brand-building benefits and greater marketing efficiencies.
According to their pitch, a £1mn media-for-equity investment deal could entail:
£1mn media budget with Channel 4 (able to be spent on any Channel 4 channel, UKTV, or All4; with the potential for regional targeting)
Media pricing benchmarked to leading UK agencies
Media planning support, or media agency recommendations
Potential for follow-on investment at a later stage
Access (as appropriate and able) to their network (9)
ITV AdVentures is the investment arm of ITV, one of the leading media groups in the UK. Most investments are media-for-equity, offering TV space in return for equities.
According to their
website, “
TV is the only medium that offers the scale and mass reach you need to reach new customers and supercharge your business’s growth in a brand-safe, trusted environment. It’s the tipping point to success, the magic formula that will cut through and shake things up, make all channels work harder, and catapult you to fame — that’s why brands of all shapes and sizes use TV to tell their story to the nation.”ITV reaches up to 40mn TV viewers weekly and accounts for more than 94% of commercial programs that attract 5mn+ viewers. According to their data, 71% of all advertising profit comes from the big screen, the highest ROI in any media.
Further on, ITV AdVentures splits into two arms: ITV AdVentures Ignite, which is aimed at startups, and ITV AdVentures Invest, aimed at scale-ups;
ITV AdVentures Ignite — “
Helping digital brands take their first steps into the exciting world of TV. Hosting some of the nation’s favorite shows and offering unrivaled reach, ITV is here to help supercharge your brand’s growth —
unlocking new customers in the only medium that can give you the scale and gravitas to tell your brand’s story with impact. We’ll use our expertise to help you identify the right media strategy, target audience, and creative messaging to make your TV launch a success.ITV AdVentures Invest — Offering TV advertising to leading, high-growth, digital-first companies in the UK in return for equity. This means that we’re aligned with a company’s success through our confidence in TV’s power to accelerate growth rapidly.
05.
£1mn+ premium media inventory for defined audiences across chosen UK regions.
06.
A flexible media plan built around your strategy can be phased and adjusted in flight.
07.
Access to partnership, sponsorship, and promotion opportunities.
08.
Know-how and support regarding the deployment of ITV media from an experienced in-house team.
09.
ITV is a strategic growth partner with aligned objectives.
10.
Our investment process is lean and fast, adjusted to the requirements of startups and venture capital.
UKTV Ventures is the multimillion-pound media-for-equity investment fund operated by award-winning TV broadcaster UKTV — home to well-known brands Dave, W and Gold. UKTV is the third-largest commercial network across the UK and Ireland, operating seven linear channels and video-on-demand service UKTV Play.
The group’s channel network reaches around 29mn people monthly across a diversified audience, including various ages, gender, and social demographics.
In October 2018, UKTV Ventures made the first media-for-equity deal with the entertainment platform Hopster. PitPat, a pet tech startup, also has a media-for-equity deal with UKTV Ventures. In January 2020, UKTV Ventures invested in ClickMechanic in a deal worth £1mn in commercial time and TV advertising.
Northern & Shell Ventures (N&S Ventures) is a group within Northern & Shell that focuses on newly founded companies and startups that have already reached a certain level of market maturity and are in an ideal position to benefit from enhanced media exposure (30).
According to their
pitch, “
Northern & Shell Ventures has a media-for-revenue and a media-for-equity business model that gives companies advertising in return for revenue-sharing or equity. The focus is on companies with scalable business models that have already proven their fundamentals (cost per acquisition, conversions, average revenue per customer, etc) but are still at an early stage of development and ready to move to the next level with the help of the Group’s advertising inventory.”NSV can help these companies with a flexible model comprising a mix of revenue share and equity depending on each situation. The primary focus is on startups and young companies with products or services of general appeal to the UK mainstream audience.
Sky Ventures is an investment arm of Sky TV, a media network that operates in the UK and Europe. Sky is owned by Comcast-NBCUniversal, one of the US’ most prolific media conglomerates. As such, it has noticed the popularity of the media-for-equity model in Europe and decided to implement it in the UK.
Their approach shows that Sky’s products and services reach over 120mn people in Europe. Their startup investments and partnerships team works with startups to create valuable new opportunities for both parties. Per their website, they have invested and partnered with European, Israeli, and US startups (10).
Sky Ventures represents a dive of US media stakeholders into a trendy European model that has not yet reached its full potential in the US. Currently, the fund has made 20 investments, and two of them, Roku and FuboTV, are global unicorns, according to Dealroom, which further demonstrates the potential of the media-for-equity investment model.
Unicorns:
3 (Roku, Fubo TV, Circle)
DMG Ventures is a consumer VC fund with a unique platform for reaching the mass market. They invest in companies at the late-seed to Series A stage, with initial tickets of £1mn-5mn, split 50/50 between cash and discounted media (31).
Leveraging their industry networks and relationship with the Daily Mail and General Trust plc, an international media, and B2B services group, they help build brands and market presence. Combined with their sector specialist team and long-term investment approach, we have a strategic proposition for startups (11).
They have invested more than £200mn since 2018 in 23 startups, three of which have reached unicorn status. Their investments include strategic media-for-equity deals focused on:
Putting the brands in the global consumer consciousness
Understanding consumer behaviors through the media division
Networking in all areas of consumer, media, and digital transformation
Benchmarking against previous investments in category-defining consumer propositions
Unicorns:
3 (Cazoo, Zoopla, Taboola)
Case Studies
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Germany
Media industry overview
The media landscape in Germany, much like the rest of Western Europe, maintains a balance between traditional and digital media.
TV is watched for an average of 371 minutes/day. German people listen to the radio for an average of 185 minutes/day and spend 25 minutes/day reading print.
Germany’s internet penetration is 89.9%, while 99% of people aged 20-39 have access to the internet, the highest rate in Europe. As a consequence, digital media is experiencing growth in Germany: Whatsapp is used by 8% of the population, regardless of age, and social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and TikTok are some of the most used online platforms, with over 20mn users in some cases.
The rising popularity of digital media is shown in ad spending: search ad spending is valued at $5.39bn, and digital video advertising at $2.26bn. Moreover, ad spending in the social media advertising segment is projected to reach $4.58bn in 2022. On the other hand, traditional media platforms, such as TV, print, and OOH, have recorded significant sums in advertising: German TV ad spending is valued at $1.36bn in the first half of 2022. Ad spending in the print segment is projected to reach $3.45bn in 2022, while ad spending in the OOH segment is projected to reach $1.97bn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
The media-for-equity model is not a new concept in the German business world. It has been around since 2000, but the popularity of the model was first noticed in Germany in the later years of that same decade, after several investment funds borrowed the concept and started implementing it, with one of the first investment funds, Media Ventures, being founded in 2000 in Cologne.
Media Ventures, in partnership with Ströer SE & Co. KGaA, offered successful media-for-equity deals to more than 30 companies, including several newly founded firms such as Global Group, Dockers, autotest.de, Spotted, aha.de, and womenweb.de. Media Ventures mainly focused on hi-tech, online marketing, and ecommerce, further underscoring the close relationship between media-for-equity deals and internet-based startups.
Germany expanded the practice of implementing media-for-equity deals further because it proved quite successful. Two other media-for-equity funds emerged: SevenVentures and German Media Pool VC, each managing to produce incredibly successful media-for-equity deals, including the Zalando and About You cases, two examples that showcase the versatility of the media-for-equity investment model.
Back in 2000, Media Ventures invested in many startups focused on eCommerce, online marketing, and hi-tech, including several newly founded companies such as Global Group, Dockers, autotest.de, Spotted, aha.de, womenweb.de.
Since then, Media Ventures have made dozens of investments, the most recent being on March 14, 2017. Media Ventures currently has 19 ongoing projects and 47 former projects.
Crunchbase only counts them starting in 2005, but the website clearly states that Media Ventures started the investments in 2001.
According to their pitch, a £1mn media-for-equity investment deal could entail:
SevenVentures was founded in 2009 in Munich, Germany and along with ProSiebenSat.1 formed a media conglomerate that consists of a network of TV channels through Media Alliance Europe, which extends through Central Europe, taking in Germany, France, Scandinavia, Poland, and others.
They helped over 70 startups and companies, such as Kuchen Quelle, Shopkick, Lieferando.de, CENTRALWAY, Numbrs, and Zalando.
It proved successful:
In 2011, it had positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of €40mn ($39mn), and it runs 20 projects at any given time.
In 2019, they utilized 1,000 hours of advertising time to help 70 current businesses on their path to success.
They have managed to support companies such as Zalando, Lieferando, Shopkick and Küchen Quelle, and many others on their way to becoming market leaders in Germany and Europe.
According to our public findings, SevenVentures has made over 94 investments, and the company had 13 exits between August 2012 and July 2019.
Unicorns:
6
(Zalando, JustFab, Numbrs, Tink, About You, Clark)
German Media Pool VC is Germany’s leading independent media-for-equity fund combining TV, OOH, print and radio. They have invested more than €300mn in gross media volume into nearly 40 startups, three of which have achieved unicorn status. With numerous successful exits, three of them in IPOs, the team expects more to come.
On print media, they partner with German and Swiss publishers, reaching out to 10mn readers of daily newspapers and 9mn readers from weekly advertising journals.
On outdoor media, they partner with WALLDecaux, reaching out to 95+% of the population in Germany’s mid-sized to largest cities.
On radio media, the fund has a partnership with Regiocast, reaching out to more than 5mn people every hour through radio stations such as
FFH,
FFN,
KISS FM,
RS.2,
Delta Radio, and
Antenne Bayern.
On TV media, German Media Pool VC has a partnership with RTL II, Sport1, Deluxe Music, and additional Swiss TV channels for a wider reach.
Their portfolio includes About You, Baby Sweets, Bonify, Clark, Covin, Friday, Geschenke.de, HeilpflanzenWohl, libify, Springlane, and others.
Fund profile:
Axel Springer Digital Ventures
AxelSpringer Group is one of the largest media conglomerates in Germany and among the largest publishing houses in Europe, specializing in traditional and digital print. Headquartered in Berlin, the company is active in more than 40 countries. The media group has its own corporate VC arm, Axel Springer Digital Ventures, which offers media-for-equity and VC investments in early-stage companies.
Case Studies
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Spain
Media industry overview
In Spain, much like the rest of Western Europe, both traditional and digital media have large numbers of consumers.
The share of daily TV viewers in Spain in 2021 was highest among those aged 75 years and older, at over 93%. In contrast, the age group 25-34 ranked as the population that watched the least TV in 2021, with a penetration rate of approximately 73.9%. The Spanish population listens to the radio for an average of 92 minutes per day, while time spent reading print has decreased slowly in recent years, falling to under six minutes per day in 2021.
Digital media has large numbers of users in Spain. The country’s internet penetration rate is 93.2%, with nearly 43mn people using the internet out of a population of 47mn. Spain has 37.4mn social media users; the number increased by 8.1mn (+28%) between 2020 and 2021. Spain's number of social media users was equivalent to 80% of the total population in 2021 (19).
The advertising spending per medium has also increased over the last five years. Ad spending in the digital market is projected to reach $4.16bn in 2022. The market’s largest segment is search advertising, with a market volume of $1.66bn in 2022. In 2021, digital out-of-home advertising (DOOH) spending in Spain amounted to over €70mn. Furthermore, the spending on digital OOH increased by more than 42% compared to the value reported in 2020. In 2021, spending on social media advertising in Spain totaled around $1.63bn.
The TV audience may be turning their heads to other types of media. Still, advertising expenditure on this medium is rising in Spain, registering approximately €2.14bn in 2017. However, it was expected to start declining and reach approximately €2bn in 2024. Ad spending in the print segment is projected to reach $790mn in 2022. The largest segment is newspaper advertising, with a market volume of $540mn in 2022. The average ad spending per reader in the newspaper segment is projected to amount to $39.36 in 2022. Spanish outdoor ad spending as a total (digital and non-digital) stood at €306mn in 2021.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Given the high rates of users in both traditional and digital media, the media-for-equity investment model was quickly and successfully adopted in Spain at the end of the 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s.
Media-for-equity in Spain operates in collaboration with media-for-equity funds from Italy in cases such as Ad4Ventures, enabling their portfolio companies to expand their products and services between the two countries.
So far, according to our research, there are three media-for-equity investment funds in Spain: Ad4Ventures, Atresmedia, and Media Digital Ventures, funds owned by or in partnerships with the country’s largest media conglomerates.
Ad4Ventures is the VC arm of Mediaset Group. According to their web
site, they are “
offering multiplatform advertising in Italy and Spain in exchange for equity in private companies with strong revenue potential.” (39)
They offer an array of services:
Promotion and visibility through advertising campaigns as well as facilitating and accelerating the development of a company, startup, or newly founded business.
Opportunity to leverage their premium editorial content.
Multiplatform and multi-territory planning through TV, web, and radio.
Advertising and promotion know-how (media planning, creativity, etc).
Support services for the company (online marketing experts, etc).
Location:
Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy
Media Digital Ventures is a cross-media independent fund focused on media-for-equity investments. The first of its kind in Spain, Media Digital Ventures holds multichannel assets across all main media platforms in the market. According to their website, this allows them to provide several media asset types to a single startup in search of brand awareness.Moreover,
Media Digital Ventures enables startups to achieve greater and better branding through various media platforms.
Media Digital Ventures has made dozens of investments, and the company has 18 ongoing investment projects in its portfolio.
Atresmedia is the only audiovisual company with a key position in every sector in which it operates — TV, radio, digital, and multimedia development, cinema, and even events organization — through its flagship brands, Antena 3, La Sexta, Onda Cero, Europa FM, and others.
In this way, Atresmedia has developed its strategy in different divisions such as Atresmedia Televisión (Antena 3, the second private channel in Spain, La Sexta, Mega, and Atreseries), Atresmedia Radio (Onda Cero, Europa FM, Melodía FM), Atresmedia Publicidad (advertisement and commercial field), and Atresmedia Diversificación (business and activities that do not depend on the advertisement market: international channels, merchandising, editorial) and Atresmedia Studios (film, fiction, and entertainment for third parties production company) (20).
The media group has an investment arm specializing in media-for-equity deals and has been making such investments for over a decade. Atresmedia works closely with other media-for-equity funds and operators in the country, investing in startups and companies that have the potential to expand beyond the Spanish market.
We have identified seven investments made by the fund, two of which are non-Spanish startups.
Location:
San Sebastián de Los Reyes, Spain
Case Studies
Italy
Media industry overview
Italy’s media landscape is similar to Spain’s. Traditional and digital media have large numbers of users, while the advertising spending for both is similar.
Traditional media in Italy is consumed at an average of 320 minutes/day. Italian people watch TV for an average of 141 minutes per day. They listen to the radio for an average of 149 minutes daily and spend approximately 25 minutes per day reading print.
Italy’s internet penetration is 76.1%, but an unusual trend is the high rate of older internet users: 88% of the population aged 45-65 are using the internet every day, which leads to high rates of social media users: Youtube, Whatsapp, Facebook, and Instagram have 20mn-30mn users each.
Advertising spending per medium is high for the country. In 2022, Italian TV recorded $3.3bn in gross advertising spending. Ad spending in the OOH segment is projected to reach $171mn in 2022, while ad spending in the social media segment is projected to reach $2.3bn in 2022.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Both traditional and digital media have large numbers of users in Italy, so the media-for-equity investment model was adopted in the country at the beginning of the 2010s. Media-for-equity in Italy operates in collaboration with media-for-equity funds from Spain in cases such as Ad4Ventures, allowing companies to expand their products and services between the two countries.
So far, according to our research, there is just one media-for-equity investment fund in Italy: Ad4Ventures, a fund that is working and operating in partnerships with the country’s largest media conglomerates.
Ad4Ventures is the venture capital arm of Mediaset Group. According to their website, they are “offering multiplatform advertising in Italy and Spain in exchange for equity in private companies with strong revenue potential.”
They offer an array of services:
Promotion and visibility through advertising campaigns as well as facilitating and accelerating the development of a company, startup, or newly founded business.
Opportunity to leverage their premium editorial content.
Multiplatform and multi-territory planning through TV, web, and radio.
Advertising and promotion know-how (media planning, creativity, etc.).
Support services for the Company (online marketing experts, etc.).
Location:
Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy
Case Studies
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France
Media industry overview
Versatility is what best characterizes the French media landscape. The population uses both traditional and digital media in their daily lives.
The French watch TV for an average of 220 minutes a day, read print for an average of 20 minutes a day, and listen to the radio for an average of 66 minutes a day.
Social media is the most used form of digital media in the country. There are over 44mn Facebook profiles and more than 33mn Instagram users. On average, French people spend 337 minutes a day navigating the internet, and similar to Italy, around 87% of people aged 40-70 use the internet daily. Consequently, media is highly consumed on both ends of the generational spectrum.Ad spending is also high in France. In 2022, French TV recorded $5.1bn of gross advertising spending.
Ad spending in the print segment is projected to reach $1.74bn in 2022; in the OOH segment, it is projected to reach $1.8bn; and in the social media advertising segment, it is projected to reach $8.9bn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
The media-for-equity investment model was adopted in France at the end of the 2000s and the beginning of 2010. France proved to be a prolific space for the model due in part to the media landscape, which has large audiences.
The media-for-equity model was successfully implemented to such a degree that one of the funds, 5M Ventures, has founded a partnership with the other media-for-equity European funds called the European Media-For-Equity Alliance, comprising German Media Pool VC (Germany), 5M Ventures (France) and Media Digital Ventures (Spain).
Currently, we have identified five media-for-equity investment funds located in France. Two of them are no longer active, while the other three are still operating in France.
Entreprendre Ventures is a media-for-equity corporation launched and media-powered by the Lafont Presse group, mostly operating locally and in print and web. It was founded in 2021, and according to its website, it has made seven media-for-equity investments.
The fund offers media exposure through print and web channels. As soon as the deals are done, the investee companies are propelled to the forefront of the French media scene through the 80 magazines of the Lafont Presse group. The group has over 28.5mn prints distributed in newsstands per year.The companies can choose to be published on their websites and OTT platforms, which have over 1.25mn monthly visits and 450,000 social media followers.
Location:
Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France
Case Studies
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Sweden
Media industry overview
Digital is becoming the top form of media people use in Sweden. an average, Swedish people, use the internet for 411 minutes, compared to 124 minutes a day watching TV or 88 minutes reading print.
Digital media is favored partly due to the country’s high internet penetration rate of 97%, with 96% of younger people using it.
As a consequence, the internet is the medium with by far the highest advertising spending in Sweden (33). In 2021
total expenditure increased by 18.6% compared to the previous year, reaching close to 32bn Swedish kronor ($2.84bn). Digital advertising is increasingly popular in Sweden. While the digital share of advertising spending was 16.9% in 2007, it rose to over 50% in 2017. It was also forecast to grow to nearly 60% in 2021 as of 2019. Companies invested more and more in digital daily newspaper advertising, whereas print newspaper ad spending significantly declined in recent years. TV advertising came in second place in 2021, with roughly SEK5.6bn. The medium with the lowest ad spend was cinema (22).
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Sweden (or the Scandinavian region) is the birthplace of the media-for-equity investment model. It was first implemented there, with Aggregate Media being the first independent investment fund that sought to use media to help startups reach a wider audience.
It started in the 1990s and quickly became a popular regional investment model. The model then became popular in Germany in the late 1990s, and several years later, many countries from Western and Central Europe started to adopt it. However, the investment model’s origins are Swedish.
Today, Scandinavia is home to three active media-for-equity players: Aggregate Media, 8 Media Ventures, and Sanoma Media Group. Aggregate Media is one of Europe’s leading independent media-for-equity investment funds.
Aggregate Media was founded in 2002. According to their web
site, Aggregate Media is a VC company investing with media as expansion capital — media-for-equity (34). Since the start of 2002, Aggregate has made over 180 transactions in various industries — eCommerce, digital services, product — and B2B companies. It targets companies that cannot maximize their impact on their market due to a lack of capital for media advertising.
Aggregate Media has a media pool provided by 15 shareholders and offers advertising through TV, radio, print, internet, and outdoor media.
In their portfolio, we mention several companies: Mr Green, Travelpartner (TravelPartner.se), Bygghemma (bygghemma.se), Outnorth, and Bythjul (bythjul.com).
Currently, Aggregate Media has 35 ongoing investment projects. According to their web
site, they have 110 former investment projects (43). All of these investments were made between October 2008 and August 2020.
ADDInvest is a media-for-equity investment pool from Sweden, primarily aimed at companies that have come a long way but need financial support to take the next step (36).
The fund offers media space up to a value of SEK15mn, and its media investments are based on a predefined budget. The companies can choose from a wide mix of TV, radio, trade press, popular press, daily press, and digital channels.
Their goal is for the portfolio companies to achieve annual growth of at least 25%. Their investments are long-term (3-5 years) to ensure the growth company’s success. They have made three investment deals with Swedish firms.
Case Studies
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Poland
Media industry overview
Poland’s media landscape follows a trend similar to Western Europe’s. Digital media is slowly taking over traditional media regarding average time spent, and ad spend.
The Polish population watches TV for an average of 246 minutes a day and listens to the radio for an average of 270 minutes a day. Poles spend an average of 390 minutes a day navigating the internet or social media.
Digital media tends to dominate the ad spending market, with $1.64bn, while TV ad spending was valued at $238mn in 2021. Radio ad spending was valued at $98mn in 2021.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Despite having a versatile media landscape, Poland’s only media-for-equity investment fund, TVN Ventures, did not last long. According to our research, the fund was founded in 2013 or 2014 and was closed in 2015 or 2016.
According to
Crunchbase, TVN Ventures is part of TVN Group, one of the leading private media groups in Poland. TVN Ventures combines great corporate experience and a young company’s flexibility and innovativeness (45). Using the group’s knowledge, media resources, and a fresh outlook on the constantly changing media market, they help new companies acquire experience and grow their business. Their range of interests covers young companies with a specific position in the market, which now needs media support to continue growing — as well as innovative startups looking for partners at an early developmental stage.
Currently, the fund’s website is defunct.
Case Studies
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Switzerland
Media industry overview
Media in Switzerland is oriented toward digital platforms. Traditional media such as TV and radio are used for averages of 123 and 105 minutes daily, respectively.
However, digital media seems to dominate the market from an advertising spending perspective.
Digital ad spending is valued at €2.77bn, while traditional media ad spending (TV, radio, and OOH) is valued at approximately €1.6bn. TV ad spending is valued at €731mn, radio at €444mn, and OOH at €390mn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Investors can adopt the media-for-equity model according to regional needs in Switzerland. One approach is media-for-success, an investment model developed by Goldbach, a subsidiary of TX Group, one of the country’s biggest private media groups.
The media-for-success investment model follows the same pattern as a media-for-equity investment because both monetize media inventory. However, there is a difference between them.
In the media-for-success model, the investment fund, in partnership with their media stations, grants startups and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) a very high discount for media inventory. At the same time, the investment fund and the startup agreed on a method to measure the startup’s success based on 1-3 KPIs. These KPIs are varied: they can be based on revenue, new clients in a certain timeframe, or an uplift within the website traffic. Practically, anything that can be measured.
The model is mainly intended for startups and SMBs that have been in the market for 1-2 years.
The other approach is the media-for-equity model, where media space is exchanged for equities. However, due to regulations, the media company must deliver the media upfront and then hold a loan in the startup. This loan will typically be converted into shares based on the negotiated and agreed valuation.
Switzerland has two leading media-for-equity investment funds: TX Ventures and Ringier Digital Ventures.
TX Ventures is an independent, non-strategic investor in innovative fintech companies with the ambition to help each of our portfolio companies to become the clear category leader.
The fund is a part of TX Group, a subdivision of Goldbach Media Group. They offer a unique model called media-for-success, which targets startups and SMBs. Under the model, the investment fund, in partnership with their media stations, grants startups and SMBs a very high discount for media inventory. There is a revenue threshold that the SMB needs to surpass to start sharing revenue.
As a long-term partner, they actively support the companies they invest in to grow faster and sustainably by offering exclusive operational support from a team of 60+ in-house experts, including all areas across product, marketing, technology, cybersecurity, and strategy. In doing so, they aim to become the fintech investor in Switzerland with the biggest impact in the fintech ecosystem.
Founding date:
1983 (Goldbach Media Group)
Ringier Digital Ventures is an early-stage investor in European consumer internet startups focusing on online marketplaces, direct-to-consumer commerce, and subscription business models. The company is not a strategic investor but invests as a venture capitalist in an attractive portfolio of minority investments. The founding teams work closely with Ringier Digital Ventures, and benefit in developing their companies from the digital expertise of Ringier AG and the large media reach (23).
Ringier Digital Ventures is the investment arm of the Ringier Group, one of Switzerland’s leading media groups.
Case Studies
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Finland
Media industry overview
Finnish people spend 170 minutes a day watching TV and 193 minutes a day listening to the radio. The internet penetration rate is 95%, and 96% of people aged 25-54 use the internet daily.
There are 3.5mn Facebook and 4.7mn Youtube users, and the numbers are rising, but there seems to be a balance between traditional and digital media in terms of consumption.
Digital ad spending is valued at €637mn, including social media, online video, and search. Traditional media platforms such as TV, radio, and OOH have a lower ad spend: TV at €228mn, radio at €55mn, and OOH at €64mn. Consequently, Finland is moving towards digital media as the dominant media platform for news and entertainment.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Media-for-equity in Finland is a rather new concept. Even though Sweden pioneered the model over two decades ago, media-for-equity in Finland was only adopted last decade. We have identified four media-for-equity investment funds in the country. Aggregate Ventures started media-for-equity operations in Finland in
2017, and since then, new media-for-equity funds have been found.
According to their website, “Sanoma Media Group reaches 97% of all Finns weekly. They provide information, experiences, inspiration, and entertainment through multiple media platforms: newspapers, TV, radio, events, magazines, and online and mobile channels. The group is a trusted partner with insight, impact, and reach for advertisers.”
8 Media Ventures is a media-for-equity investment fund established in 2021 and based in Helsinki, Finland, and Stockholm, Sweden. According to their website, they offer advertising space “from their market-leading media partners” to high-growth B2C companies. With its network and know-how in building high-growth brands, the fund acts as a sales catalyst for the companies they invest in.
They make minority investments in early-stage companies with their base in the Nordics and ambition to scale. They search for companies with strong brand potential, great talent in key positions, a proven go-to-market model, and sound unit economics.
So far, Borderbridge has documented three investments done by the fund.
M4E Finland Management Oy manages Finland’s first media-for-equity fund. The fund invests in Finnish startups and growth companies. It has invested in approximately 25 companies and already has three successful exits (Verso Food Oy ‘Härkis’, MOI Mobiili, Evervest Oy).
According to their
website, M4E is looking for investment targets for companies of all sizes and in different stages of development, whose growth and shareholder value benefit from advertising and which would need funding for advertising.
A prerequisite for M4E’s investment is that the company has committed, competent, growth-oriented management/owners. The company’s business must be at a stage where media advertising has a significant and demonstrable benefit to its growth and value. The company’s income financing or other growth financings must be sufficient for at least the next 12 months to cover business expenses and investments other than advertising.
M4E prefers equity investments, but other investment options, such as debt instruments and profit-sharing agreements, are also possible. M4E is also often a party to syndicates and investment rounds in which other financiers participate. The funding of an individual company’s media budget can be €100,000-500,000. M4E is usually involved in the company as an investor for 3-5 years. The exit from the investments takes place in a controlled manner, following the goal set jointly by the owners.
According to their
website, “
IPR.VC is a private equity investor focused on media and entertainment content. IPR.VC has an internationally experienced team with connections to the key players in the industry. IPR.VC funds are backed by leading Nordic institutional investors. IPR.VC invests in collaboration with international distribution and sales companies.”
Some investments are with US independent film production company A24 Distribution and companies within the film industry, TV industry, animation, and gaming industries. IPR.VC is a hybrid media-for-equity fund, investing solely in media-related companies (46).
Case Studies
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Norway
Media industry overview
The Norwegian media landscape is similar to that in the rest of the Nordic region. There is a balance between traditional and digital media, with the latter being the dominant form for news and entertainment.
With over 241 minutes spent on the internet daily, digital media surpasses TV (125 minutes/day) and radio (127 minutes/day) in terms of consumption.
Ad spending in Norway also emphasizes the strong push of digital media: over €1.93bn is spent on digital advertising, while TV and radio combined are valued at €411mn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Given such a strong digital media push, the Netherlands has seen media-for-equity being adopted accordingly. While the classic model exists, and media-for-equity funds such as L’Express Ventures have invested in the Netherlands, the model is shifting towards digital media and marketing.Influencer Capital, a Dutch media-for-equity investment fund, is reshaping the model using almost exclusively digital media, emphasizing influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing has become one of the most necessary forms of online marketing worldwide. With millions of internet users browsing social media feeds for entertainment, inspiration, and product recommendations each day, it is no surprise that brands are increasingly leveraging the power of the web’s most recognizable faces for promotion. Partnering with content creators can improve brand awareness and exposure, unlock new audiences, and ultimately drive conversions, which is what a classic media-for-equity investment does at the core (24).
The Netherlands
Media industry overview
With a 91% internet penetration rate, the Dutch population predominantly uses digital media daily: 328 minutes daily are spent navigating the internet and social media. A staggering 94% of people aged 45-54 use social media daily.
However, traditional media is still used for entertainment and news. Averages of 151 minutes and 160 minutes are spent watching TV and listening to the radio, respectively.
The dominance of digital media can also be seen in advertising spending. Digital media ad spending is valued at €3.18bn, while TV and radio ad spending are valued at a combined total of €1.3bn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Given such a strong digital media push, the Netherlands has seen media-for-equity being adopted accordingly. While the classic model exists, and media-for-equity funds such as L’Express Ventures have invested in the Netherlands, the model is shifting towards digital media and marketing.
Influencer Capital, a Dutch media-for-equity investment fund, is reshaping the model using almost exclusively digital media, emphasizing influencer marketing. Influencer marketing has become one of the most necessary forms of online marketing worldwide. With millions of internet users browsing social media feeds for entertainment, inspiration, and product recommendations each day, it is no surprise that brands are increasingly leveraging the power of the web’s most recognizable faces for promotion. Partnering with content creators can improve brand awareness and exposure, unlock new audiences, and ultimately drive conversions, which is what a classic media-for-equity investment does at the core (26).
Influencer Capital is a new form of a media-for-equity investment fund. According to their pitch, Influencer Capital invests in startups with groups of influencers. They accelerate their growth through influencer marketing, putting them in front of millions of consumers.
Per investment, they collect a group of influencers (5-50) that fit the startups' target audience and brand values. Then they agree with the influencers on who will post what, when, and where. Based on their involvement, they price their efforts and combine them into one investment vehicle.
“Because we do this with multiple influencers, we create multiple touch points with consumers. The campaign is not built around nor impacted by an individual influencer. In addition, to the outside world, it doesn’t look like the influencers are shareholders. It just looks like a massive always-on influencer marketing campaign.”
- Scott Van Den Borg, Founder, Influencer Capital
L’Express Ventures was founded in 2012 by Corinne Denis and Stephane Boukris. Within six months after the investment company launched, it initiated deals with over 140 startups from France. Six were selected for a media-for-equity deal, according to the French publication
FrenchWeb.
L’Express Ventures was France’s first media investment fund dedicated to media-for-equity deals at its launch. Although it stopped its activity, it operated in Belgium and the Netherlands.
In their deals, L’Express Ventures
claimed that they only asked for 12% of the equities from the startups.
Currently, their website is defunct.
RTL Ventures is the investment arm of RTL Nederland, investing media inventory for equity in high-growth Dutch B2C companies. According to Dealroom, RTL Ventures has made 14 investments, three of which have been acquired.
Case Studies
Belgium
Media industry overview
The media landscape in Belgium, unlike the other countries in Western Europe, does not tend to head towards digitalization. Still, there is a surprising balance between traditional and digital media. The country has a 91% internet penetration rate, and the Belgian population spends an average of 345 minutes daily navigating the internet or using social media. Still, at the same time, they are watching TV and listening to the radio for averages of 313 and 232 minutes a day, respectively.
Belgium is the only country in Western Europe that does not have a substantial difference in advertising spending between traditional and digital media. Digital ad spending is valued at €902mn, while TV is only €869mn. Given that we could not find the advertising spending values for radio and print, we can conclude that overall traditional media ad spending is higher overall than digital media.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Media-for-equity in Belgium has been explored during the last decade, with funds such as Belgian Media Ventures and L’Express Ventures offering startups and early-stage companies exposure through traditional media and the internet.
In our research, we have identified three media-for-equity firms operating in the country: Belgian Media Ventures, which was founded in 2014 and had an uncertain status, L’Express Ventures, a French media-for-equity investment fund operating in Belgium and Media Invest Vlaanderen, a media-for-equity investment fund that operates in the Flemish region.
Belgian Media Ventures is the first media-for-equity investment pool from Belgium and is a subsidiary of Régie Media Belge (RMB). The investment pool offers media campaigns for young small and medium-sized enterprises using the media (TV, radio, or internet) traded by RTBF (Radio-télévision Belge de la Communauté Française) in exchange for capital investment.
According to their website, Belgian Media Ventures offers a media campaign for a minimum of €400,000 gross, with a refund of 75%, or €100,000 net. The €100,000 is payable partly in cash (30%, or €30,000) and partly in the capital (70%, €70,000). A company valuation is performed at the outset to assess the percentage in the capital with the option for the shareholder to recover their capital in five years.
The media can be consumed over a period of two years.Belgian Media Ventures offers access to the advertising space of RTBF across TV, radio, and web platforms.
Advertising space is scheduled in “floating time” (after the scheduling of traditional advertisers, based on space availability) by RMB, adhering as closely as possible to the wishes of the partner concerned.
Belgian Media Ventures focuses on the following companies:
Where the company has not been advertised already in the RMB portfolio.
The RTBF media spaces represent a real lever for companies addressing consumers in the broadest sense.
L’Express Ventures was founded in 2012 by Corinne Denis and Stephane Boukris. Within six months after the investment company launched, it initiated deals with over 140 startups from France. Six were selected for a media-for-equity agreement, according to the French publication
FrenchWeb.
L’Express Ventures was France’s first media investment fund dedicated to media-for-equity deals at its launch. Although it stopped its activity, it also operated in Belgium and the Netherlands.
In their deals, L’Express Ventures
claimed that they only asked for 12% of the equities from the startups.
Currently, their website is defunct.
According to their
website,
Media Invest Flanders focuses on SMEs with an (operating) seat in Flanders or Brussels that are active in media content (audio and audiovisual) or media technology. The joint venture focuses on the growth of sustainable companies; individual projects are not eligible. Media Invest Flanders invests with (convertible) subordinated loans of capital participations from 250,000 euros to 1,000,000 euros (target amounts) in one or more rounds. For higher amounts, partner PMV can take additional action.The fund is a joint venture between two shareholders: the Flemish Public Broadcasting Company VRT (www.vrt.be) and PMV (www.pmv.eu), the independent investment company of the Flemish Region.
Those eligible for an investment from Media Invest Vlaanderen are companies operating in the media sector with growth ambitions that have a balanced team and a proper and efficient plan. The decision to invest is primarily made on the basis of a (business) plan that describes, among other things, the products or services the company offers, the target audience, the specific market, revenue, and the team.
Austria
Media industry overview
The Austrian media landscape is defined by a balance between traditional and digital media.
The Austrian population watches TV and listens to the radio for averages of 203 and 185 minutes per day, respectively. While we could not find any data regarding the average time spent on the internet or social media, we have found that there are 3.3mn Facebook users, 7.37mn YouTube users, and 3.15mn Instagram users, which would make digital media a growing media platform in the country. This is further emphasized by the high digital ad spending, currently valued at €1.66bn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Austria is part of the German-speaking population, so naturally, it will adopt the business trends in Germany. Media-for-equity saw adoption in the Austrian business ecosystem over the last decade, but the German model has included Austria as part of its exposure space. However, in 2013 Media4Equity Invest was founded, and according to our research, it is also the first media-for-equity fund in the Austrian space. Currently, there is no certainty if the fund is still active.
Media4Equity Invest was Austria’s first independent media-for-equity investor. According to startups.cc, “the fund provided cash and media investments for startups looking for rapid expansion in Austria and internationally.”
Currently, their website is defunct.
Case Studies
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Russia
Media industry overview
From the information we gathered about Russia’s media landscape, it seems that traditional media, especially TV and radio, is the dominant form.
The Russian population watches TV and listens to the radio for an average of 380 minutes a day and 290 minutes a day, respectively. Digital media, on the other hand, is being used for an average of 170 minutes per day, but the number of users is especially high. There are 106mn YouTube users in Russia and 63mn Instagram users.Regarding ad spending, we only managed to gather information about digital ad spending, which is valued at €4.3bn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Little to no data is available about media-for-equity in Russia. However, we did find a media-for-equity fund based in Moscow, Prostor Capital. Currently, its status is unknown.
Prostor Capital is a Russian venture fund focused on investments in growing IT companies and internet-based startups (48).
According to their
company’s profile, the venture fund was founded in 2011 by a group of investors, including Leonid Reiman and Sergey Merkulov (49).
Among other departments, Prestor Capital has a department dedicated to media-for-equity deals.
Market: Australia
Media industry overview
Australia is a country where media thrives in all its forms.
Australia is a country where media thrives in all its forms. Traditional and digital media are regularly consumed nationally; historically, it has always been this way. Some 30% of the population watches TV at any given time, while Australia’s internet penetration rate is 86.5%. The country’s largest media conglomerates — News Corporation Australia, Fairfax Media, and APN News and Media — have dominated the market for decades and have made efforts and changes in their infrastructure to offer quality news, newspapers, and radio shows. Today, an Australian person watches TV for an average of 204 minutes/day; an average of 60 minutes a day is spent listening to the radio, while up to 124 minutes a day is spent reading print.
Digital media is becoming more and more prevalent in Australian households. The population spends an average of 373 minutes daily navigating the internet or social media. Moreover, a study conducted by PwC found that Australian households spend $4,500 a year on entertainment, with streaming and gaming taking the biggest slice. It is also estimated that more than 80% of Australian households will pay for streaming services
by 2022 (50).
While the regional trend is the growth of digital media, this trend also seems likely to evolve in the coming years; video streaming services and the gaming industry is expected to grow to such an extent that it will overtake traditional media in revenue.
Ad spending also reinforces the idea of digital media growth in the region: digital ad spending reached $3.449bn for the first quarter of 2022, up by 19.2% in the same period in 2021, and it is expected to grow to $10.97bn for the full year. TV ad spending is valued at $4.1bn, and radio at $66.7mn.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Despite the variety in the Australian media landscape and especially the growth of digital media, media-for-equity as an investment model has not been entirely adopted by the ecosystem apart from a couple of media-for-equity investment funds.
In our research, we found that Australian media-for-equity is implemented and operated similarly to the European media-for-equity model, especially the German one.
Media is exchanged for company equity, and the funds work with multiple media conglomerate networks to provide the companies with media and advertising services.
The model works regionally so far, with no intentions for expansion or co-investing. The first media-for-equity investment fund is Scaleup Mediafund, founded in 2016. The second, MediaCap, was founded in 2017. We found no information about the start date of the third fund, Seven West Ventures.
Scaleup Mediafund is the first media-for-equity investment fund. It was founded in 2016 by Michael Lamont and Richard Skimin of News Corp Australia. According to its website, it is powered by Australia’s largest media groups, including News Corp Australia, REA Group, Foxtel, Network Ten, and Nova Entertainment.
The Australian media-for-equity fund was established based on elements of inspiration from the European media-for-equity model, especially those of German Media Pool VC and SevenVentures.
Offering media and advertising in exchange for equities, Scaleup Mediafund works with a media network that reaches the vast majority of Australian households and owns many quality publications, websites, and programs that can reach every target demographic.
The Australian media-for-equity investment fund has already made 14 investments (PointsBet, Mad Paws, HeyYou, Local Agent Finder, and Mable, among others) since 2016, while their investments are as large as AU$1mn ($630,000).
Scaleup Mediafund has become a pioneer in Australian media-for-equity investments. The fund plans to integrate more new media channels into its deals and expand investing opportunities by diversifying its portfolio.
According to their pitch, a £1mn media-for-equity investment deal could entail:
Seven West Ventures is the Australian Seven West Media media group’s investment arm. According to their pitch, they deliver unique “‘money can’t buy’ benefits of being powered by Australia’s largest media and audience platform.”
Their investments include media-for-equity deals that aim to drive scale through long-term success. The media-for-equity agreements provide support across all Seven West Media assets, but the capacity for cash investment can be considered where appropriate. They also offer access to a diverse media inventory, network, and creative talent. This includes in-program/editorial support from Australia’s most trusted and viewed programs, activations, and segment sponsorships while they build optimized media strategy and campaign management.
The fund mainly invests in companies that have reached Series A funding level or beyond, and have a proven business model with traction, a high-performing management team, and the ability to scale.
Location:
Eveleigh, New South Wales, Australia
According to their pitch, MediaCap is Australia’s first independently managed media-for-equity fund. Like German Media Pool VC, MediaCap invests media inventory through channels such as radio, outdoor, online, and TV channels as expansion capital in high-growth startups for equity stakes.
It operates by simplifying the budget issues for startups by providing large media campaigns to drive growth. Their fund model ensures they are as invested in a company’s success as the company itself. As independent managers, they select media from the fund’s channels that best meet each company’s needs (51). Their arms-length structure helps align the interests of media shareholders, investee companies, and the fund.
Their ideal candidate for investing is a B2C or C2C with a business in the growth phase with an accomplished management team able to execute growth. They also look for a business model that innovates in their sector and is scalable.
Case Studies
Market: South America (Mexico and Brazil)
Mexico
Media industry overview
Mexico is embracing digital media platforms, but traditional TV remains dominant.
The population watches TV for an average of 343 minutes a day, almost double the time spent navigating the internet, which is an average of 180 minutes per day. It is also seen in advertising spending: TV ad spending alone is valued at $1.54bn, while digital ad spending, as a whole, is valued at $2.21bn.
Several factors explain TV’s dominance. The media conglomerates have built a tradition of offering attractive TV content, and according to
MediaLandscapes.Org, TV penetration in the country is 93%, with households owning an average of two TV devices each. Coupled with the strong push in TV ad spending, we can clearly see that TV is the dominant media platform in Mexico.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Media-for-equity has been adopted in the regional market. Since TV is the dominant media platform in Mexico, TelevisaUnivision, the country’s largest media conglomerate, has founded an investment arm specializing in media-for-equity deals based on the success they have seen it has on the market.
According to our findings, TelevisaUnivision, Mexico’s largest media conglomerate, has established a dedicated media-for-equity investment department, offering Mexican but also international startups and scaleups and media exposure in the Mexican and Central American markets.
While we do not have exact information on the start of the media investment activity, the group has already made 29 media-for-equity investments. In our research, we have found that with TelevisaUnivision’s media investment and support, four companies from their portfolio became unicorns through media-for-equity investments.
Moreover,
according to Bloomberg Línea, TelevisaUnivision, as part of its merger with Univision, seeks to implement the media-for-equity investment model in the US, and Alfonso de Angustia, Co-President of TelevisaUnivision, said:
“We see it as an opportunity to show the market how relevant the media is to create and position a brand”. (56)
If it happens, it could create the first media-for-equity alliance in the North American space, enabling new markets for both countries.Unicorns:
4 (Ualá, Rappi, Kavak, Clip)
Case Studies
Brazil
Media industry overview
Brazil is dominated by the growth of digital media platforms, which is also the most important trend in the region.
Brazilians spend an average of 557 minutes a day on the internet. Some 93% of people aged 16-44 use the internet. There are over 117mn Facebook users, 138mn Youtube users, and more than 120mn Instagram users.
Digital media has grown to such an extent that it threatens the stability and revenues of traditional media companies, which have historically dominated the Brazilian market. Digital media will continue to grow in Brazil, effectively dominating the media in the upcoming years.
While traditional media platforms are still strong, they are not used as much as digital ones. An average of 337 minutes a day are spent watching TV, while 266 minutes a day are spent listening to the radio. TV and radio ad spending is currently valued at $3.8bn and $442mn, respectively, while digital ad spend, as a whole, is valued at $5.83bn. Globo Group, Brazil’s largest and most important media conglomerate, produces and exports media content worldwide.
With a rapidly growing digital media landscape, traditional media conglomerates in Brazil follow a similar trend to that of media consolidation found in the US while trying to adapt to the current times by launching streaming services and digital newspapers.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
In Brazil, media-for-equity was adopted as an investment model in 2020, when Globo Ventures and NSC Comunicação’s media investment practice were founded. In practice, the model follows a similar structure to the European one: media space in exchange for equity.
The media-for-equity model has been adopted in the region to innovate and diversify revenue. It is usually fully integrated into the core business operations, so the marginal cost of investing media is low. The funds are mainly the investment arms of corporate media conglomerates.
The ideal company for a media-for-equity deal in the region would be a B2C company that has met product-market fit validation. The media campaign usually lasts for 12-24 months, and the media investment is used as a complementary deal for growth. Startups still prefer cash rather than media space if cash is offered.
The model is bound to grow in Brazil because:
01.
It is a good strategy to deal with the declining audience of traditional media platforms and ensure the business's longevity and sustainability.
02.
Regarding the digital media landscape, digital influencers, artists, and singers can use their image and influence in media-for-equity deals, a trend growing very fast in Brazil.
Globo Ventures is the VC arm of Grupo Globo, Brazil’s largest media conglomerate. Founded in 2020, Globo Ventures specializes in media-for-equity deals, offering late-stage companies expansion in Brazil through media. So far, the investment fund has made 16 investments in Brazil in B2C startups.
With their focus on media investments and entrepreneurship, they aim to actively encourage this ecosystem by capturing and expanding opportunities generated through technology and innovation typical of this environment. Globo Ventures believes that the media-for-equity model is the most effective way to democratize the access of Brazilians to more agile, efficient, and inclusive products and services (26).
NSC Comunicação is a media group based in Santa Catarina, Brazil. It is a franchise of Rede Globo, part of Brazil’s largest media conglomerate. Rede Globo is doing media-for-equity nationally in Brazil, while NSC Comunicação operates in Santa Catarina, which is home to 6% of the Brazilian population. The group made its first investment in 2020 and today has six companies in its portfolio.
Challenges from the new media platforms (digital media, social media) were the reasons behind starting a media-for-equity investment department; it helped diversify the revenue stream. The media investment deals include TV advertising, but they have a digital print channel, a radio channel, and other small operations that they use to offer deals to seed-stage startups. The reason for choosing seed-stage companies is geographical limitations. They ultimately help B2C seed-stage startups from Santa Catarina become known in Santa Catarina.
TV deals have many limitations. So far, NSC Comunicação’s investments have relied on digital and radio advertising, which helped the companies achieve brand awareness in Santa Catarina. A media campaign lasts for 18-24 months, and when the companies grow, they collaborate with Globo Ventures to forge bigger media-for-equity deals for expansion in Brazil.
NSC Comunicação does not create the advertisements but provides feedback on the creatives. They plan the media and follow up with the startup for the KPIs generated from the deployed campaigns while giving the startup the freedom to work with freelancers for the creatives.
Quintal Ventures is an investment that also does Media for Equity investments. Located in Curitiba, Brazil, the fund is backed and supported by Grupo RIC, an audience leader in the Brazilian state of Paraná.
Investing both money and media in companies at their early stage of development, Quintal Ventures offers financial contributions up to R$500,000 (about $95,000) and media boosts. Their media platforms consist of 4 TV stations, 6 radio stations, 1 magazine, 2 digital portals, and several channels on social networks, and it reaches 10M+ people/per month.
Quintal Ventures also offers mentorship and guidance to the selected candidates to maximize the benefits of the investment.
Case Studies
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Market: Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore)
Media industry overview
When talking about the Southeast Asian media market, we decided to focus on Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia because they are the most-relevant countries to the subject of media-for-equity.
The media market in Southeast Asia is characterized by the rapid growth of digital media platforms, especially OTT platforms. The growth has increased during the last five years while experiencing a boom during the Covid-19 pandemic. Streaming platforms, video, and audio compete with traditional media platforms, such as TV and radio, while the entire region is experiencing a shift towards mobile entertainment.
Digital media is gaining traction in the region, and traditional media broadcasters are building digital media solutions. There is not a single media conglomerate that is the strongest in the region.
Traditional media is a force to be reckoned with: in 2022, 82% of Malaysia’s population has access to TV and watches it for an average of 5-7 hours daily, and 58% of the population listens daily for 1-3 hours of radio. In Singapore, 45% of the population watches TV for an average of 2 hours/day, and 44% listens to the radio for an average of 4 hours daily. In Indonesia, TV is watched by 91% of the population for an average of 4 hours daily, while 50% of the population listens to the radio for at least 10 minutes a day.
However, digital media has experienced substantial growth over the past five years. Bolstered by growing internet penetration rates — with Indonesia at 76%, Malaysia at 89%, and Singapore at 92% — people in Southeast Asia use the internet for large proportions of the day. Singaporeans spend a daily average of 7.30 hours on the internet, Malaysians 9.17 hours, and Indonesians 8.52 hours. One consequence has been the growth of digital ad spending from $3.6bn in 2021 to $4.1bn in 2022, and it is set to reach $4.7bn in 2024.
Another important consequence of this substantial growth is the adoption of OTT platforms. In 2022, 34% of Southeast Asian viewers are streaming OTT, representing a growth of 22% compared to 2021. There are 200mn users who stream 9.7bn hours worth of OTT content per month. In Singapore, one in two users is streaming OTT, and 39% of OTT viewers have switched from traditional TV, the highest in the region. Indonesia logged an increase of more than 26% in OTT penetration; 30% of Indonesians now stream OTT, consuming 3.5bn hours per month, and 27% of OTT viewers in Indonesia have switched from traditional TV (29).
Millennials and Gen Z (age 16-34) make up 44% of OTT viewers, watching 4 hours of content/day. Users are shifting from traditional TV to OTT, and 22% of OTT viewers no longer watch TV. Moreover, 116mn people are tolerant of ad-fueled content on OTT, with 89% willing to watch two or more ads in exchange for a free hour of content. In Singapore, ad-supported viewership is increasing, with 52% of viewers using ad-supported platforms.
OTT is growing significantly in Southeast Asia, slowly but surely overtaking traditional TV in terms of watching and consuming video content. As for the future, eSports and gaming will become the region’s dominant trends in digital media.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
In Southeast Asia, the management of media resources have been historically focused on just the predominant platforms. Recent history has seen an increase in internet penetration in the region, so mobile content is rising, meaning that OTT is also increasing. Advertising through media has been done predominantly through traditional platforms but only the most predominant ones. A media mix for advertising has only recently come to be seen as a good choice. It is also the main reason for adopting the media-for-equity investment model.
In Southeast Asia, traditional media consolidation slowed the adoption of media-for-equity. It has not worked efficiently in the past because no media groups would successfully offer excellent results and large audiences on each platform. The growing rates of digital media also mean that diversification of offers — which allows regional media groups to initiate media-for-equity deals to regional startups and companies — has started to take hold.
Fame Media Global is an independent media-for-equity fund based in Singapore, led by Hasnain Babrawala and Jignesh Desai. Established in 2021, Borderbridge’s 2021 research paper on media-for-equity helped lay the foundation of Fame Media Global, labeled as Southeast Asia’s first independent media-for-equity fund. Working alongside some of the largest media groups in the region has already established the fund in the Malaysian, Singaporean, and Indonesian markets. Fame Media Global can reach 98% of consumers in Malaysia, 95% in Singapore, and 90% in Indonesia.
The infrastructure of Fame Media relies heavily on exploring both traditional and digital media. This specific method goes hand in hand with how media is consumed in Southeast Asia: mostly through mobile devices. Fame Media has explored the media-for-equity concept in such a way that it includes access to new-age media, exponentially increasing the success of any company that signs a deal while offering exposure through traditional media.
On traditional media, they offer 15 TV channels reaching 83% of the Singapore-Indonesia-Malaysia (SIM) population, 20 press titles reaching 44%, and 30 radio stations reaching 76%. They also reach 90% of TV households on broadcast and pay TV.
On digital media, they are reaching 130mn+ consumers in regional and local OTT environments; 200mn+ on 1,000+ digital OOH billboards, and 142mn+ consumers in eGaming and eSports, with a 75% reach on audiences below 35 years of age, while also offering 65 local online publishers across SIM countries, reaching 95% of the internet population.
Media Prima is a Malaysian conglomerate that employs a multiplatform media approach to advertising and media for revenue.
It offers media-for-equity investments focused on revenue growth, brand awareness, and exposure through its various media channels. It has four different broadcast stations and operates the top two TV and Radio stations in Malaysia. It has a 23% share of Malaysian TV viewership, while the second-ranked provider has 8%. Across all four stations, it has a 30-34% leading share of the TV market in Malaysia, with over 200 TV stations and more on cable.
TV is one of their largest revenue generators and Media Prima’s main business model. It owns the largest print business in Malaysia, with three newspapers. It also runs the second-largest radio station in the country.
Media Prima is top in the Malaysian market for TV and print, second for radio, and is the country’s largest billboard operator, and its fourth-largest revenue generator. Home shopping, eCommerce, and media-for-revenue contribute around 23% of Media Prima’s revenue.
Location:
Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Founded by Ranga Somanathan and Ravi Bhaya in 2020, RSquared Ventures helps startups from industries such as data, tech, content, and media scale across geographies and audience segments.
Through RSquared Ventures, B2C startups are offered media-for-equity deals with important regional media groups. The fund also mentors and guides startups to achieve certain points of success.
MNC Group, one of Southeast Asia’s leading media groups, has also made several media-for-equity investments since 2017. As MNC Group had a much-unused TV inventory, media-for-equity seemed the perfect opportunity to monetize it, even though in regional countries such as Indonesia, media-for-equity was not a popular investment model yet. MNC Group invests cash or media — but not both — into the same investment.
MNC Group is making two types of media-for-equity investments:
01.
Smaller investments that can vary from $500,000 to $2.5mn, with brand awareness and market exposure.
02.
Larger investments that can be more than $10mn, with revenue growth and scaling goals.
Founding date:
1989; 2017
(media-for-equity investment arm)
Case Studies
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Market: Middle East (Israel)
Media industry overview
There is not enough available data to build a profile on Israel’s media landscape, but we have found that the population spends an average of 113 minutes watching TV daily.
We do not have data regarding the time spent on the internet, but Israel’s internet penetration is 86.6%, with a 94% internet usage rate among people aged 16-54. The country has 4.65mn Facebook users, 7.06mn Youtube users, and 4.25mn Instagram users. Digital ad spend is currently valued at $1.34bn.
As a local trend, digital media seems to be growing in dominance. Still, it is slowed down by Israel’s internet speed (currently ranked 62nd in the world) and local political and social conflicts. On the other hand, political conflicts affect the growing availability of TV airtime in Israel; TV has become a better advertising solution.
Media-for-equity history, fund profile, and activity overview
Israel does not have a long history of media-for-equity. Still, due to the region’s unique situation, traditional media platforms have more free airtime available so the model would thrive in these conditions. Currently, there is an independent fund, The Partners, alongside its primary media partner Keshet Media Group; they do media-for-equity and media-for-revenue deals with companies, mainly B2C.
The Partners is pioneering the model in the country, leveraging media investments even at the early stages of the company, increasing the chances for the investee to become a market leader in their sector.
The model is successful in Israel, but more investments must be made to cement the practice. It is a rather new model, but as it gains prominence, the startups will become pickier about what kind of media best fits their growth strategy. There is a bright future for media-for-equity in Israel, as new upcoming digital startups will disrupt more and more markets, and they will need this type of deal to penetrate the market and get the brand awareness to compete with the establishment.
The Partners is a media-for-equity investment advisory from Israel. Based in Tel Aviv and founded in 2017, the fund has made five media-for-equity and media-for-revenue investments on a case-by-case situation, the first to do so in Israel. The main media group they work with is Keshet Media Group.
After the media group identified that their TV airtime was increasing in availability, they started targeting eCommerce, marketplace, and all the digital startups that were upcoming in the startup ecosystem. They structured media-for-equity and media-for-revenue investment deals as an option to grow their businesses.
From a deal structure perspective, The Partners are managing each case individually. For example, the creatives usually subcontract to media and advertising agencies; at one point, they created 40 spots and did A/B testing on TV to see which would work best.
The media campaigns usually run for a minimum of 12-24 months, more than enough time to track the model’s overall performance and campaign performance.
One of their most successful cases is Libra, a digital insurance company that benefited from a media-for-equity campaign for brand awareness and exposure. As a result, Libra grew 10x in three years and was listed at a $115mn valuation on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Case Studies
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