State of Media Capital 2025: A Decade of Growth and the Road to 2030

The media and advertising landscape is changing at an unprecedented pace. As traditional revenue streams decline and consumer brands face tougher fundraising conditions, media capital is emerging as a powerful tool for both media owners and high-growth startups.

The MFG 2025 Report presents the most comprehensive analysis of media capital to date. Drawing on insights from the first-ever Media Capital Fund Manager survey, the report examines 530 investments to assess the returns for media companies, the impact on consumer brands, and the future trajectory of this asset class.

Here are the top 5 key takeaways:
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• Media capital is becoming a critical tool for media companies, consumer brands, and their investors. 56% of the media fund managers surveyed emphasized that optimizing ad inventory was a key driver for considering media capital deals whilst 94% of the brands that raised a media capital round in the last decade are still active to date.

• Media capital deals have become more than just a tool for optimizing ad inventory. They are now an integrated part of corporate venture strategies. 94% of fund managers plan to either increase their allocation of media capital or maintain it in 2025, with some US media companies allocating 5% of their revenue to media capital investments.

• Growth-stage startups are increasingly turning to media-for-equity deals to reduce customer acquisition costs and accelerate brand awareness. Brands using media capital to scale on TV achieve mass-market penetration five years earlier than brands following traditional growth models.

• Media capital offers a unique intersection between advertising and venture capital, providing a faster liquidity path for investors. Based on 598 brands in the MFG Deal Hub, 43 have gone public, and 135 have been acquired. On average, media capital-backed brands that IPOed reached this status 12 months faster than general B2C companies.

• The US is emerging as a key growth market for media capital, with increasing interest from media companies looking to institutionalize the practice. However, 73% of survey respondents indicated that the primary challenge is educating growth-stage startups about the benefits of the model.
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Contributors:
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• Mary Ann Halford, Halford Media Advisory – Strategic media advisor with decades of experience in media investment.

• Rodrigo Lascurain, TelevisaUnivision – Media-for-equity investment lead at one of Latin America’s most active media capital investors.

• Michael Lamont, Scaleup Media Fund – Managing Partner at one of the largest independent media-for-equity funds.

• Chris Hill, Edenbase Capital – Investor and former media capital fund manager.
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Download the full report to explore:
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• More consumer brands case studies

• How media companies are leveraging unsold inventory for strategic investments

• Expert perspective on the future of media investments
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