Letterboxd Founders on Selling Their Company, Expanding Into TV: ‘We Need Some Mentorship to Take Us to the Next Level’
variety.comTodd Spangler NY Digital Editor Matt Buchanan and Karl von Randow, the two movie mega-fans who started Letterboxd as a part-time labor of love, have sold a majority stake in the business.
So what’s going to be different now? Not much, the two New Zealanders tell Variety. For starters, they remain in charge of running Letterboxd. “We are not expecting a whole lot to change!” says von Randow. “We are not suddenly going to have four new bosses.” The Letterboxd founders chose to sell a controlling stake to Canadian investment firm Tiny — a deal that pegs the company’s value at north of $50 million — because of its relatively laissez-faire philosophy. “Instead of us feeling like we’ve been slurped into something massive,” von Randow says, “their approach is to get involved when founders need help.” One of Letterboxd’s next big initiatives will be expanding to add TV shows for users to rate, review and track.
But that’s not new, nor will it necessarily be accelerated because of the Tiny investment, according to Buchanan. TV “has been on the cards for several years,” he says.
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