In nearly a decade between being founded and going public, Spotify is estimated to have raised $2.6bn in funding. Compare that to video-streaming startup Quibi, which hasn’t launched yet, but has already raised $1.75bn – including a new round of $750m this week, a month ahead of its debut. This is the company co-founded by Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and tech veteran Meg Whitman, which is placing its (increasingly big) bets on short-form mobile video.
Variety reports that the new round included investment from ‘studios, major technology companies, strategic partners and financial investors’, and notes that Quibi has been spending ‘up to $100,000 per minute on production budgets for originals’, with the service due to launch with around 50 shows.
It’ll cost $4.99 a month for a subscription with some advertising, or $7.99 to remove the ads. There are plenty of doubters pointing to the already-intense competition in the video streaming market, but while even $1.75bn can’t make a startup too big to fail, Quibi does appear to have a decent amount of runway to give its strategy a go.
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