Introducing Our 2025 Media Investor Cohort

The Media C-Suite has released our second annual, Media Investor Survey Report for 2025. As a preview, we take a look at this year’s participating investors.

This year’s population of Survey Respondents has grown to a collective US$111.8 billion in assets under management (up from US$84.2 billion last year) and looks remarkably different from those participating in The 2024 Media Investor Survey. This year, they’re weighted more heavily over North America, span a wider range of assets under management and show a striking decline in sector specialists compared to last year.

These shifts don’t speak for the global investor universe. They reflect only the Respondents to our survey. Yet the changes are telling. They offer signals that matter for entrepreneurs and executives looking to raise capital within Media & Entertainment today.

A Bigger, More North America–Weighted Cohort

Ninety-eight senior investment executives took part in the 2025 survey, almost doubling the 52 from last year. All but six of last year’s Respondents returned for The 2025 Media Investor Survey.

Many of this year’s new Respondents are introductions from last year’s group.

Crucial Reading:

The 2024 Media Investor Survey

Our inaugural survey of media investors presents crucial insight for both media executives and media entrepreneurs seeking access to smart money.

The geographic balance has shifted: 55 percent of this year’s Respondents are based in North America, compared with a heavier 67% European mix in 2024. Family Offices remain the single largest group in the sample, accounting for 53 percent this year, slightly higher than last year’s 50 percent. This continued dominance within the population of investors available to us highlights their accessibility as allocators of capital into Media & Entertainment.

The range of assets under management reported this year is broad, stretching from a US$9 million High Net Worth Individual (HNWI) to a US$10 billion State-Owned Investment Company. While the mean rises to US$1.14 billion, pulled upward by a small number of very large firms, the median sits at US$278 million for the “typical” Respondent. What emerges is a bimodal picture: a wide base of boutique and mid-sized players coexisting with a handful of giants.

That pattern echoes 2024, when respondents described a US$5 million to US$10 million “sweet spot” for typical ticket sizes. Only the very largest of our Respondents cite a preference for parting with US$10 million or more into Media & Entertainment. Nearly all of our Respondents prefer a “co-invest” approach.

One thing remains true: our Respondent investors reinforce a diversity in capital sources all actively seeking value creation across the Media & Entertainment industry.

Specialists Retreat, Opportunists Dominate

The sharpest change from 2024 is in the mix of specialists and generalists.

Last year, 42 percent of respondents described themselves as specialists with distinct clusters in technology and sports. This year, only 12 percent use that label. The overwhelming majority (88 percent) say they approach Media & Entertainment opportunistically today, scanning broadly across the landscape for opportunities.

We explore this change in investor focus in the full report.

This article should interest you:

The Burgeoning Bubble of Big Brand Sport

Major league clubs reach record high valuations just as media rights revenues in the world’s most lucrative market face the challenge of legacy media aging out.

The shift is significant.

In 2024, entrepreneurs could seek out capital sources with aligned sector expertise. In 2025, they are more likely to find former specialists behaving as generalists, weighing additional (perhaps adjacent) opportunities across the entire industry.

Signals for Entrepreneurs

For founders and executives, signals from our Survey Respondents are strong.

Sector focus is less important than it was a year ago. This suggests a shift in investment strategy. For example, professional investors have sought sport and tech opportunities as clear value drivers in their own right. That focus seems to be eroding. Being a “sport” company or “sport adjacent” may no longer attract the same interests as a year ago.

One frustration voiced in 2024 has not gone away.

Last year, 65 percent of respondents judged Media & Entertainment investment proposals to be of low quality, with only 4% rating them highly. The demand for “investment-ready” opportunities was a recurring theme. It seems no less pressing in 2025.

This year’s Survey Respondents reveal a larger, more North American cohort skewed increasingly toward opportunistic investing into M&E. Specialist focus on narrow segments of M&E are waning as opportunity across the industry widens.

With generalists now making up the vast majority of this year’s cohort, entrepreneurs are directly competing with a wider spectrum of opportunities.

Being investment ready seems more important than ever to investors. This should be at the top of mind with those seeking investment capital.

Methodology: Continuity and Expansion

The 2025 survey follows the framework we introduced in the 2024 Media Investor Survey.

Senior investment executives completed a standardised questionnaire and, in many cases, took part in guided interviews. Responses were anonymised and collated at a meta-data level, allowing participants to speak openly on sensitive issues such as valuations, deal quality and allocation strategies.

Qualitative commentary was encouraged and has been integrated alongside structured responses on sentiment, market trends and the future of private capital into M&E.

This year, we enhanced the process by partnering with Coherent Media Group and its Capital Strategies team. This collaboration increased our design rigor and the analysis of where investors see value creation over the next five years in the Media & Entertainment industry.

Recruitment once again relied on professional networks with many participants introducing additional candidates, broadening the pool.

This article offers a lot:

Bacon’s Law: Finding Professional Investors

Professional investors provide more value than the money they invest. So, how do entrepreneurs in the creative industries find them?

To preserve independence, investors commercially connected to either The Media C-Suite or Coherent Media Group (e.g., frequent media sources and consulting clients) were not invited to participate in order to avoid bias in our survey data.

The result is a statistical population of investors that is both larger and more geographically diverse than in 2024. While not representative of every investor in the market, the continuity of method ensures meaningful year-over-year comparison.

What’s Next

The full results from this year’s 2025 Media Investor Survey will be released shortly on The Media C-Suite. They provide deeper analysis of deal flow priorities, geographic focus and capital allocation strategies with meaningful insight for both investor and entrepreneur alike.

In the meantime, readers can follow The Media C-Suite for ongoing coverage, register for early access to the report and join our community forum to debate what these findings mean for entrepreneurs, executives and investors navigating the next wave of disruption in the Media & Entertainment industry.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published before the 2025 Media Investor Survey Report was released. The Report is now available, and this article has been updated accordingly.

The Publisher

Representing the entire team, posts from “The Publisher” offer deeper insights into the collective mind of the Media C-Suite. Our acting Publisher is Thomas Kingston, and you may recognise his voice and style in much of the work posted under the by-line of The Publisher.