Intrinsic has a crowdfunding effort underway.
“We believe the platform built FOR people who love movies should be owned BY people who love movies,” Joyce says on her crowdfunding site.
Intrinsic has so far raised US$103,000 ($182,000) – which Joyce says will go toward efforts to attract angel investors.
While the money Joyce has raised is symbolic, pundits say it points to the potential for user-rebellion if a corporate buyer is is too hard-nosed in their efforts to commercialise Letterboxd.
Founders’ 40% stake
Buchanan and Karl von Randow hold 40% of Letterboxd today (20% each), according to Companies Office records, implying a possible payday of $206m between them at the valuation quoted by the Times.
“As Letterboxd has grown, it’s natural there will be interest in what we do next. There’s nothing specific for us to share at this time. Any decision about Letterboxd’s future would involve the founders,” a spokeswoman for the pair said in July, when sale rumours first surfaced.
The founders could not be immediately reached today.
The pair earlier made around US$15m ($26.5m) each in a 2023 deal that saw Canadian entrepreneur Andrew Wilkinson – a long-time friend of Buchanan after the pair met on Tumblr – take a 60% stake in Letterboxd via his holding company, Tiny.
Letterboxd has 40 employees in New Zealand, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, according to Buchanan and von Randow’s rep.
The site, which exploded in popularity amid Covid lockdowns and viral videos that saw a scrum of Hollywood celebrities revealing their favourite movies for Letterboxd’s “Four Favorites” series, now has about 30 million users. But it has not disclosed how many use it for free versus its $21.85 or $56.35 per year premium plans.
The New York Times Company has bolstered its newspaper’s paid subscriptions with a series of deals, including its 2016 purchase of consumer guide The Wirecutter and its 2022 deal to buy sports site The Athletic for US$550m ($972m). Both were folded into the Times.
Third big score
Letterboxd is Buchanan and Karl von Randow’s third commercial hit.
Buchanan and von Randow founded Cactuslab in 2001 as their first venture. Both graduated from the University of Auckland in the mid-1990s with computer science degrees; von Randow joined web design firm WebMedia as his first job while Buchanan became art director of computer magazine Bits & Bytes and later NetGuide.
Cactuslab was a pioneer in its field and drew the likes of Barfoot & Thompson, Ockham Residential, Honda New Zealand, the Jane Goodall Institute, the AA and Westpac as clients. Buchanan and von Randow remain directors today.
“We didn’t realise at the time but, by starting and growing Cactuslab, we were building the engine that would eventually allow us to build Letterboxd,” Buchanan said.
“If you don’t take funding at the start of a big tech project, one of the few other viable options is to supplement it with other paid work. It’s a much slower path, but it allowed us to be much more deliberate in how we designed the features and grew a resilient community.”
Buchanan and von Randow founded their second start-up, Verifi Identity Services, in 2012 with fintech players Tyler McNamee and Vincent McCartney (each of the four had a 25% share).
They created Cloudcheck – an identity verification platform inspired by the user-hostile nature of the Crown-backed RealMe – and gained Sharesies, Milford Asset Management and other high-profile firms as early adopters.
In 2022, UK-listed GBG Group bought Verifi for $20m upfront, plus $8m in earnouts.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
