From left: actor Dennis Quaid, actress Margaret Qualley, director Coralie Fargeat and actress Demi Moore arrive for the screening of the film “The Substance” at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024. Mubi’s purchase of “The Substance” has allowed the niche indie streaming service to reach more in Hollywood.
Loic Venance/Getty Images
Sequoia is the latest blue-chip VC to invest in an indie cinema powerhouse: It led a consortium to invest $100 million in art house streaming service Mubi, valuing the company at $1 billion.
It represents part of a growing interest among VCs in investing in media and entertainment production companies. Based in London, Mubi was most recently the distributor behind box office success “The Substance.”
While not the typical software startup investment, Mubi isn’t the lone outlier consumer bet in Sequoia’s portfolio. The famed venture firm has backed companies like online fashion retailer Dolls Kill and Marie Kondo’s home organization company, KonMari.
Investments in film distributors like Mubi come with unique advantages. Mubi has exposure to consumer trends and a deep network in the film industry, which is experimenting more and more with AI tools, many of which Sequoia has invested in.
Building a bridge with the movie industry could be advantageous for Sequoia’s AI video and voice generation portfolio companies looking for big-ticket customers. One of a VC’s most valuable assets is its ability to make connections to potential customers and partners on behalf of its portfolio companies.
Sequoia partner Andrew Reed said that Mubi is “high growth and profitable” in an interview with the Financial Times. Its new valuation is more than six times the $150 million price tag set in 2018.
Sequoia has invested early in realistic voice generator ElevenLabs and AI-powered captioning platform Captions.
The firm isn’t alone in its strategy to bring movie distributors to its AI-heavy portfolio. Last year, Thrive Capital invested in indie movie producer A24 at a $3.5 billion valuation. OpenAI, one of Thrive’s biggest bets, emerged as a leader in the video generation space last year when it released its model, Sora.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly included HeyGen among Sequoia’s investments (June 3, 2025).
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