Venturing out..
What are legacy media companies investing in and what might those investments signal?
Maybe it’s just my feed, but LinkedIn has become a doom scroll of media anxiety lately with endless posts about needing to "find new audiences" or "stay ahead of the tech curve". I get it: Facebook referrals are down 48%, X is down 27%, and search engines are increasingly trapping readers in AI answer boxes rather than sending them to actual websites.
For years, publishers formed their digital strategy around unpredictable, borrowed tech: algorithms they couldn't control and platforms that viewed them as just another content provider.
Now, faced with industry uncertainties and growing platform codependence, the biggest players are trying something that feels either brilliant or desperate, depending on your cynicism level: they're becoming VCs.
The major players and what they’re focused on
Financial Times, BBC, and The Daily Mail Group have all launched venture funds in the past couple of years, with Reuters just announcing their second fund last week. A smart piece in A Media Operator (which inspired this article!) features insight from the president of FT on why their fund exists: to offer guidance to early startups while learning about and experimenting with their tech in return.
To me, this isn't just about revenue, it's about owning the infrastructure of information and being strategically positioned for whatever the future holds.
FT Ventures (launched 2024)
Focused on the entire information ecosystem, they're not just backing content companies but also interested in funding data, intelligence, and technology solutions. Their typical investment goes up to £5m with options to add media and services for equity which I’ll get into later.
BBC Ventures (emerged 2024)
Their ventures head Jeremy Walker has expressed clear disinterest in traditional content, instead making opportunistic bets on immersive media and interactive storytelling. Unlike other funds, BBC Ventures operates without a set budget, making investments 'opportunistically'. Their only public investment so far is Condense, a company building immersive live events. It’s probably worth paying attention to BBC’s investing patterns to get a sense of what their organizational roadmap might look like.
Reuters Ventures ($100M in 2023, $150M in 2025)
Branding themselves as an 'enterprise technology venture fund,' Reuters is investing in professional services tech from tax software to insurance processing. This makes sense to me given their audience of professionals and current product suite.
Hearst Ventures (Since 1995)
The pioneer in media venture funding has significantly focused on B2B investments, putting $14 billion into this space over the past decade. As of November 2024, these investments account for more than half of Hearst's profits. Notably, they appear to be focusing a lot on transportation and supply chain tech with 16/56 investments in this area, possibly to grow their transportation business line which I didn’t even know existed.
ITV AdVentures (2020) and Daily Mail Group Ventures (new funds: 2024)
Both of these funds might have the most innovative approach: trading ad inventory for equity stakes. It changes the venture investing equation by converting audience attention into ownership stakes and is something that traditional VC funds can’t offer. It opens new possibilities not only for publishers but even for influencers and content creators.
ITV has only 7 public investments in their current portfolio in sectors ranging from fashion, health & wellness, and pharmaceuticals while DMG’s current investments include sectors like sustainability, food & beverage, and consumer tech.
Looking across the current portfolios of all of these funds, I'm seeing three main trends into what bets they’re making on the future.
1. Information and attention of niche audiences
These funds are making precise bets on affluent and niche audiences in the following ways
Specialized content: FT is backing outlets for specific industry professionals: Business of Fashion (fashion industry professionals), Sifted (European investors), Charter (HR professionals and C-suite), and The Logic (Canadian business leaders). This 'own the C-suite's attention' strategy makes a lot of sense and is something that I think has gained a lot of steam since Morning Brew’s launch.
Advertising tech: Hearst's investments in platforms like tvScientific and Optable show an interest toward sophisticated ad targeting platforms which would definitely help their core content businesses.
Sports experiences: Beyond just traditional media, what really excites me is Hearst and DMG's moves in sports.
They're investing in technologies that could reshape sports coverage and engagement. These investments include streaming portals specific to sports (Xin’ai Sports), real-time stats, and live event experiences for niche sports like Formula One and padel. Having spent years in newsroom analytics, I can tell you that sports audiences, especially for local news outlets (like all of the Hearst magazine brands), are incredibly loyal and ripe for conversion to paid subscriptions. I think this is a space that every publisher should keep their eye on as it could indicate how to strengthen and innovate sports coverage.
2. Integrated ecosystems
This might be a bit of a stretch, but I've noticed something interesting about Hearst’s investments that hints at a possible push toward integrated ecosystems. Hearst’s investment in Supermom, a digital platform that connects brands with parents, for example, could be leveraged to create a branded hub where parents can get essential advice, shop, and interact with other parents all in one place. It reminds me a lot of NYT Cooking and how it’s become more than just a recipe app, turning into a place to not only discover recipes but interact with other culinary enthusiasts and shop. .
Then there’s their stake in Caavo, now known as JubileeTV, which further supports this theory. Starting as a universal entertainment control system, it’s transformed into a simplified, all-in-one content hub tailored for seniors and families. When you connect the dots, it seems like Hearst could be interested in exploring the potential of self-contained environments.
3. AI for operations
I’m noticing that many funds are focusing their AI investments on building efficient solutions, both internally for their newsrooms and externally for their B2B clients.
Reuters: Focuses on professional solutions through investments in Safesend (tax automation), Spellbook (legal contract generation), and Propense.ai (client services intelligence).
Hearst: More of an AI focus on media operations: AppliedXL (news signal detection), Vault AI (market research for the entertainment industry), and Signal AI (media monitoring).
While it’s exciting to see all this movement in the corporate media venture space, there are a lot of factors at play and it’s not for everyone. Let’s consider the potential upsides and risks of media organizations launching venture arms:
Upsides:
Control: Investing in their own tech enables media companies to reduce dependency on dominant tech players, and maybe even potentially rival them.
Long term growth: While it would potentially take a while for profits to materialize, these investments could turn into major revenue drivers in the long run.
Safe experimentation: Publishers could freely experiment with new technology through their investments without jeopardizing their core operations and audience.
Leveraging reach: Using media assets as equity is a clever way to lower risk and still invest in the future.
Access to more data: To me, this might be one of the biggest advantages to making these investments. More consumer insights means more strategic content and business decisions which is a major advantage to staying competitive.
Risks:
Uncertainty: Venture capital is a long-term play, and not every investment (if any) will pay off.
Conflicts of interest: Investing in startups in areas that their newsrooms also cover could compromise editorial independence. There's a lot of potential for this situation to become slippery, with journalism and the principles of a free press possibly being deprioritized in favor of profits and returns.How do these parent companies prevent themselves from becoming the new tech overlords?
Resource strain: More investments mean more responsibilities and liabilities which could distract from core operations.
Access: Currently, these funds are created by large legacy media companies that have the cash and resources to dedicate to this. While the media for equity model does help to lower the barrier to entry, I think it's important to highlight the importance of diversity in the types of funds within this space. Non-legacy publishers launching funds could prevent uniform thinking and promote a broader spectrum of innovative ideas for what the future could look like.
Final thoughts
I wonder how smaller organizations can join in on this trend, if at all possible. What if smaller, cash-strapped media organizations pooled their advertising inventory to invest collectively? Could independent newsrooms create a joint fund that leverages the media-for-equity model to invest in mission-driven startups? I have no idea how this would work in practice but it’s interesting to think about.
At the end of the day, if these funds succeed in adding value, they could fundamentally transform not only how media businesses operate but also how they think and learn from industries outside their own.
If they fail, they might become just another expensive experiment in an industry already full of them. One thing’s for sure: in this uncertain landscape, those who aren’t willing to take risks will get left behind.