Fox To Buy Streaming Service Tubi For $440M

Fox Corporation will acquire streaming startup Tubi for $440 million in cash, the companies announced on Tuesday.

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Tubi, which is based in San Francisco, is an ad-supported streaming service with more than 20,000 titles from over 250 content partners, including major studios like Paramount and Lionsgate. Users can watch movies and TV shows on more than 25 digital platforms, according to a statement from the companies.

“Tubi will immediately expand our direct-to-consumer audience and capabilities and will provide our advertising partners with more opportunities to reach audiences at scale,” Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. “Importantly, coupled with the combined power of FOX’s existing networks, Tubi provides a substantial base from which we will drive long-term growth in the direct-to-consumer arena.”

Fox is paying for Tubi with money from the sale of its stake in Roku, the company said. The acquisition of Tubi is expected to close in the first half of this year.

Fox also plans to run Tubi as an independent service, but will “evaluate opportunities to expand the Tubi offering not through original content, but rather in a cost-effective manner by leveraging our expertise in national and local news and sports programming.”

Tubi raised $26 million in total funding, with it last raising $20 million in a Series C round of funding led by Jump Capital in May 2017, according to Crunchbase.

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias