Billionaires pile into media outlet streaming videos to youth

A youth-focused media company that churns out fast-paced, news-related videos has netted a fresh billionaire investor, bringing the total to four of the world’s wealthiest people.

Brut SAS, the six-year-old operation whose name means raw, has just attracted Rodolphe Saade, the French shipping tycoon, as an investor, Brut CEO Guillaume Lacroix said in an interview on Thursday. Crypto startup MoonPay is also a new investor in Brut’s latest funding drive, he said. 

Saade, who already has media assets in France, joins James Murdoch, the younger son of News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch, French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel and Gucci owner Francois-Henri Pinault as financial backers.

Brut has now raised a total of about $153 million since it was founded. The latest funding drive netted between €35 million and €40 million ($43.7 million), Lacroix said. The platform has about 500 million monthly unique viewers worldwide.