Joost Announces $45 million Funding From Sequoia, Index, CBS & Viacom
Internet TV startup Joost raised $45 million in a venture round of financing, the company will announce this evening. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, CBS Corporation, Viacom and Chinese billionaire Li Ka-shing.
Context & Ripple Effects
Joost's $45 million close lands one week into its commercial push: the company declared on May 1 that it was launching commercially, then had to apologize on May 3 when the current application build proved too error-prone to start. The round, confirmed in a Business Wire release the same day, pairs financial backers Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures with two major US broadcasters, CBS and Viacom, plus Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.
The timing is pointed: on May 6, Viacom joined NBC Universal in filing a court request backing Robert Tur's copyright case against YouTube. The same conglomerate now holds equity in an invite-based, licensed-content video service — money and legal pressure pointing in the same direction.
First-order effects
- Joost gets the capital it says will fund global expansion, and CBS and Viacom shift from prospective licensors to shareholders with a direct stake in supplying programming to the platform.
- Li Ka-shing's participation gives the expansion plan a backer with China reach at the moment Joost's own client software is failing its invited users.
Second-order effects
- YouTube faces a strengthened opposition: NBC Universal and Viacom's court support for Robert Tur's case now sits alongside Viacom's equity position in a competing rights-clean service, aligning litigation and investment against the user-upload model.
- With Sequoia and Index both in, the round has transatlantic depth, letting Joost pursue markets beyond the US broadcast footprint its new media investors dominate.
Third-order effects
- If content owners keep converting licensing relationships into equity stakes, internet TV consolidates into broadcaster-aligned camps versus user-upload platforms, with copyright litigation serving as the competitive wedge.
- The mix of venture firms, strategic media corporations and individual billionaires in one round points to professional online video being financed through hybrid strategic rounds rather than pure venture capital.
The trend: Media conglomerates are moving from merely licensing content to internet TV startups toward owning stakes in them, pairing investment with copyright enforcement against user-upload platforms.