Cannes Festival Partner Brut Raises Nearly $40 Million From Rodolphe Saadé’s CMA CGM, MoonPay in Fourth Funding Round
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Brut, the influential digital media publisher which became one of the main partners for the Cannes Film Festival last year, has just finalized its fourth funding round for approximately $40 million.
The company, founded by Guillaume Lacroix, Renaud Le Van Kim and Laurent Lucas six years ago, has enlisted a pair of powerful financial backers: CMA CGM, the world’s third-largest container shipping company owned by billionaire businessman Rodolphe Saadé, which also recently nabbed 10% of France’s second biggest commercial network M6, and the daily newspaper La Provence; and MoonPay, a leading Miami-based financial service company for web3 whose investors include former tennis star Maria Sharapova, as well as Snoop Dogg, Drake and Justin Bieber, among others. Aryeh B. Bourkoff’s LionTree advised the deal with MoonPay.
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With this fourth round, Brut has raised nearly $140 million since its launch, and has been able to keep its former investors on board, including James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems, François-Henri Pinault’s Artemis, Orange Ventures, Tikehau Capital, BPI, as well as Xavier Niel, the telco billionaire behind Iliad and co-founder of Mediawan.
Speaking to Variety, Lacroix said Brut will be profitable by the end of 2023, a significant achievement for a free and fairly young digital-native outlet that relies on advertising. The company anticipated a dry out in capital access earlier this year and proceeded to some layoffs.
Lacroix says Brut’s huge platform and track record in producing socially-minded, unfiltered content has been key in attracting these savvy backers. Brut lures half a billion unique viewers every month, many of whom are Gen-Z users, according to Lacroix.
Along with completing this funding round, Brut has also been signed by CAA to help the service connect with their talent, as well as major brands, in the U.S.
Tackling issues like inclusion, feminism and the environment, the service delivers sharp, concise video news, interviews and lives. These are shared on all social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch and Snapchat. Some of its highest-traffic interviewees include French President Emmanuel Macron and Apple Chairman Tim Cook.
“We were already present in the U.S. through festivals such as Tribeca and the Art Basel, and CAA is now helping us rally more artists around important causes,” says Lacroix. Prior to this partnership, Brut started working with celebrities such as Kerry Washington during the presidential race and Arnold Schwarzenegger for his climate summit in Austria.
The banner will continue producing original content for its subscribers like it did in the past with “Salam,” a documentary by Mélanie Diam’s, Houda Benyamina and Anne Cissé which world premiered at Cannes in 2022. The docu feature rolled out on Amazon Prime Video after selling over 90,000 tickets in only two days in French theaters.
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