Tucker Carlson’s new media company secures a $15 million investment

Tucker Carlson just found a timely infusion of cash into his new media company from an investor working to help fund the conservative shadow economy.

Venture capitalist Omeed Malik, who said he was a “corporate Democrat” five years ago by heart, has led the $15 million seed round with other private investors to help the former Fox News star develop a ” proof of concept” for what he wants. to do with his intended media empire, the Wall Street Journal reported

The money will allow Carlson to hire people to help him design his comprehensive plan for his vision, which will serve as the foundation to start lining up the really big investments that will be needed for a modern, large-scale project. media company.

Carlson, whose new media company is being planned as Last Country, Inc., knows Malik because the money man was also available to invest in the Internet media group he started with Neil Patel in 2010: The Daily Caller. .

Carlson, of course, is already posting videos almost weekly at hers Account X. It ended at X after Fox News unceremoniously fired him although he was the host who received their highest ratings.

The Journal noted that Makik’s investment in Carlson’s nascent media group “is structured as a SAFE, short for Simple Agreement for Future Equity, a mutual agreement initiated by Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator that often does not assign a valuation to the startup, according to people familiar with the matter.”

This gives Carlson a little more freedom to develop his company by having to quickly demonstrate initial valuation.

Carlson’s new media company will obviously be fueled by customers and fans who pay a subscription to access all content, but it will also offer free content to entice more customers to invest their dollars in the full service, a model used by most media, large. and small

Chris Buskirk, one of Malik’s partners, described the plan for Carlson’s new venture.

“The whole vision is to create the next media company that is built specifically for the 2020s and 2030s, in a way that Fox and Rupert [Murdoch] and Roger [Ailes] he created a cable news business that was really designed for its time and place,” Buskirk said.

The Conservatives proved they have market power when they he cooperated in a spontaneous boycott of Bud Light that has pushed the beer out of its former top-selling slot as the king of American beers.

As for Malik, he has taken a journey from thoughtful Democrat to conservative startup backer because he felt assaulted by reality thanks to what he saw as an overreaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. .

“Flinging with government mandates, he found illogical and corporate limits on speech that he considered censorship,” the WSJ reported, “moved from Manhattan to Florida and began dating Republican donors. He discovered an opportunity of business in the so-called “parallel economy” of conservative-friendly companies.

Malik funded his own venture capital firm which he calls 1789 Capital. 1789 was the year the Bill of Rights was drafted to be added to the US Constitution.

The financier told the Journal that he found one of the main reasons so many conservative companies fail is because they don’t think expansively enough for financing longevity.

“What’s happened so far is that you’ve had some wealthy benefactor, who is ideological, put a company into business, but then there’s no institutional support to continue funding that business,” Malik explained.

Malik then noted that so many Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms refuse to invest in conservative companies like Carlson’s simply on a political basis, and he saw it as a business opportunity that he could not pass up.

“Where will the money go?” Malik told the paper. “I want us to be the beneficiaries.”

Malik and Buskirk outline their counter-concept to the left’s corrupting ESG investing, or “environmental, social and governance” investing, replacing this concept with what they call “EIG,” or “entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth” investing. the latter it’s what I used to invest in until the left infiltrated the sector.

“What we are focused on are the opportunities that we believe have developed in the market because other forms of institutional capital have become politicized,” Buskirk concluded.

In the end, the idea is to base investment on three principles, “deglobalization,” or investing in American-based companies and bringing jobs and technology to the US; the “shadow economy,” or the creation of a strong business sector that caters to real Americans and conservative ideals; and “anti-ESG” practices.