Letterboxd is once again looking for a new owner

Holding company Tiny purchased a controlling stake in the company in 2023.

Letterboxd is once again looking for a new owner

In 2023, social media platform Letterboxd sold a controlling stake to Tiny, a Canadian holding company that’s careful to tell you on its website that it is not a private equity firm. Regardless, Tiny is ready to pass off its stake to someone else, according to a new report from Semafor. The company has reportedly been shopping around the “Goodreads for movies” website to a few potential buyers, including Versant—the new company recently spun-off from Comcast that includes MS NOW and CNBC—and The Ankler. Semafor reports that Tiny had actually approached The Ankler last year about a potential sale, but they couldn’t reach an agreement, so it just partnered with Letterboxd for a series of FYC ads. 

That campaign actually seems to be part of the current sales pitch. As Semafor‘s Max Tani writes, Letterboxd is “undermonetized” relative to other sites of similar size. As of this year, the site had 26 million active users. Of course, the fact that the site does not feel like the algorithmic-driven hell hole that has overtaken much of the rest of the internet probably has a good amount to do with its success. Even since Tiny took control of the site, it hasn’t changed as much as some users feared it would, though Semafor notes that there has been an increase in display advertising and last year it launched a video rental service. But whatever future monetization opportunities exist, it seems like Tiny views passing the company off to someone else as its best chance for profit.

 
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