Cannes Festival Partner Brut Raises Nearly $40 Million From Rodolphe Saadé’s CMA CGM, MoonPay in Fourth Funding Round
variety.comElsa Keslassy International Correspondent 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. 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.
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