Media Ventures

Media Ventures is a boutique venture capital company that is exclusively focused on investments in the media. Investment capital has been raised primarily from high net worth individuals in the US and the business, which has been running for over ten years, currently has an IRR of 48 per cent.

Past notable investments include Teletext. Media Ventures formed a consortium with Philips, Daily Mail and General Trust and won the Teletext licence on ITV and Channel 4 in the UK.

A successful exit for the firm last year was the IPO of Talk Radio (now known as The Wireless Group) on the London Stock Exchange. Talk Radio was launched by a consortium formed by Media Ventures in 1993. After refinancing in the mid 1990s, ownership was shared between Media Ventures and media company CLT. In 1999, Media Ventures assembled and lead another consortium to take over Talk Radio and the station became known as the Wireless Group.

Among the firm’s current portfolio is The Digital Broadcasting Company set up by Media Ventures with Richard Brooke, former finance director of BSkyB.