Digital media startup Brut
is announcing that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding. The
money will be used, in part, to finance its launch in the United States.
CEO
Guillaume Lacroix said that he and his co-founders all come from the
French TV industry, where they were all “frustrated not to be able to
follow up the conversation” on social media. So they created Brut
as a way to deliver video news that felt conversational and authentic,
hoping to spark viewer conversation, then take advantage of that
commentary to find future stories.
“We always say to journalists,
‘Forget the audience, think about your two best friends,’ ” Lacroix told
me. “Would you be excited to have this conversation tonight with your
friends? If yes, let’s do it.”
The publisher focuses on topics like social good and social impact — for example, it published the first viral video
featuring climate change activist Greta Thunberg. Lacroix argued that
Brut’s audience is looking for solutions, not just problems, in contrast
to the “negative news cycle” that they see on traditional media.
“People
are not waiting anymore — they don’t wait for institutions to do it,
they don’t wait for the collectivity to do it,” he said. “It’s very
inspiring to see someone who takes even a small action.”
At the
same time, he doesn’t want Brut’s journalists to veer too heavily into
advocacy or activism themselves: “We don’t do a call to action, we’re
not activists, we don’t point a finger. We just shine a light on people
who are trying to do something to change the world.”
In many ways, Brut seems to check off the same boxes (it aims to
reach a millennial/Gen Z audience with short videos on Facebook,
Instagram and Snapchat) that many U.S. digital media startups did before
they started to struggle and consolidate over the past few years.
But
Lacroix said the startup’s approach is working — not just in terms of
reaching an audience, but also building a real business. Brut is already
profitable in France, and it plans to be profitable in the U.S. within
three years.
Asked whether he’s worried about relying on social
platforms to reach his audience, Lacroix argued that even if you focus
on publishing on your own website, you’re reliant on Google for traffic.
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“For
me, it’s not a problem of distribution, if you’re diversified enough,”
he said. “It’s a problem of: What’s your business model? Why did Spotify
explode from day one? They have a global DNA. It’s exactly the same for
us.”
For example, Lacroix said that Brut’s audience is concerned
about many of the same issues no matter what country they’re in. And the
company is able to produce content for them in a relatively low-cost
way, because it can shoot a video in French or English, then add
subtitles in a variety of languages — most audiences won’t even notice
because they’re watching on their phones, with the sound off.
To
be clear, Brut hasn’t exactly been ignoring the U.S. market before this.
The company said it has an audience of 30 million daily active viewers
across the globe, including in the United States, and it opened an
office in New York City a couple of years ago. By “launching” here, Brut
means it’s hiring an advertising sales force to start monetizing that
audience.
The company previously raised €10 million (approximately $11.1 million) from Kima Ventures, according to Crunchbase. The new funding was led by Red River West and blisce, with participation from Aryeh Bourkoff, Eric Zinterhofer and others.
“When
deciding where to invest, we look for mission-driven companies whose
values are aligned with our own,” said blisce founder and CEO Alexandre
Mars in a statement. “Like blisce’s previous investments in Spotify,
Pinterest and Bird, we believe that Brut’s unique global approach
represents a special competitive advantage, as well as an understanding
that business success and positive social impact are inextricably
linked.”
Source. TechCrunch, Anthony Ha, October 30, 2019
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