Our Belief in Video and Our Partnership with Mux
Consumers watch a lot of video. It’s the most engaging type of content produced, and video is everywhere — from obvious sources like your favorite Netflix show, to less obvious places like that funny gif your friend just texted to you (which is actually just a small mp4 video).
Video is also accounting for more and more of all internet traffic — given the majority of what the web is used for, you could argue that the internet is really just a big elaborate video distribution system.
Video is a pain and it’s only gotten more difficult over the last few years. What’s more of a pain, is scaling only compounds that problem leaving developers with few options for making video a core part of any content offering. Consider this chart comparing video publishing over the last decade:
Enter Mux.
Mux uses an API approach to allow developers to embed HD video with ease. They get the resources of a large video engineering team without the infrastructure or overhead. Millions of hours of video are streamed over Mux’s servers every month. Mux also has a data analytics software to help developers understand their video consumption and optimize performance. This data product was used by Fox to analyze their live broadcast of the Superbowl! This developer-first approach is similar to how Twilio and Stripe simplified complex infrastructure to revolutionize communications and payments. Mux is seeking to do the same and to democratize video by empowering developers to build rich video into their applications in hours, not months.
At Cobalt, we invest in better and more personalized user experiences. Mux is the infrastructure layer powering the front-end of video. Use cases vary across B2B Enterprise (collaboration and software tools, conferencing, productivity, CRM), Consumer (ecommerce, fitness, photo sharing, gaming, etc.), Developer (CMS, Hosting, CDN, API, etc.), and Media (social, music, video on demand, video sharing, news, education and TV). The graphic below represents some of Mux’s customers:
The San Francisco based team is comprised of industry-leading founders, experienced management (from YouTube, Bain Capital, Twitch), seasoned video engineering bench, and strong investors.
We first met Jon Dahl and the team back in early 2019 and knew they were building something truly unique. We believed that video would proliferate, and more and more content would be consumed in video format and we wanted to back the best team that could develop software that would power the next generation of video.
We originally invested under our Evolution Media brand when we led Mux’s Series B and later participated when Andreesen led the Series C. The team at Mux has continued to execute and grow and excel at making something so difficult look so easy.
For all of these reasons, we are excited to announce our continued partnership with Mux in their latest $100M Series D round. The round was led by Coatue and we were also joined by existing investors Accel and A16z, as well as new investor Dragoneer.
We couldn’t be more excited to continue partnering with the Mux team and we can’t wait to see what is in store!
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Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources and Cobalt has not independently verified such information and we make no representations about the accuracy of the information contained in this blog, links to third party sources or the materials provided by such sources. The content in this blog is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment advice or recommendations of any kind. In addition, nothing contained in this blog should be relied upon for purposes of investing in any funds managed by Cobalt Capital, nor is anything contained herein an offering to invest in any Cobalt Capital fund — any such offering will be set forth in a legal agreement provided directly by Cobalt Capital.
Any investment by Cobalt Capital mentioned in this blog is not an assurance of profitability or success nor is this a comprehensive list of all Cobalt investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results and certain statements herein may constitute “forward looking statements,” which may be subjective and subject to a number of uncertainties and factors outside of Cobalt’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements.
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