Recently, the video hosting platform Rumble gave notice that it was merging through Cantor Fitzgerald’s CF Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ: CFVI) (a SPAC).

The main value proposition appears to be an uncensored video platform. The Rumble platform appears to be targeting a few different markets.

As such, I thought it would be good to do a light analysis.

NOTE: This is not financial advice, I do now hold shares in CFVI (spoiler alert!).

Target Markets

Video hosting – Rumble.com
Subscription service for content creators – Locals.com (Rumble merged with Locals)
Web / Video hosting Infrastructure – Mentioned in multiple interviews, not launched

Unique Value Proposition

Pro-free speech and opposed to censorship, incorporating on those grounds
Opposed to demonetization
Data will be owned by the users (as opposed to say, YouTube), particularly for Locals.com
Stated intent to provide infrastructure and tools

In multiple interviews the CEO has stated they intend to have the community & prominent 1st amendment attorney’s build a Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. Locals already provides legal ownership of all data to the creators.

Investors & Future Collaborations

They also appear to have gained some critical investors such as Peter Thiel. Recent news also indicated they’d be supporting Donald Trumps new social network.

Long-form Interviews with CEO Chris Pavlovski:

The Statistics

Rumble Statistics

From Rumble (December 2022 SPAC merger announcement):

Tremendous growth from 1.6 million average monthly active users in Q3 2020 to a record 36 million average monthly active users in Q3 2021
44 million monthly active users in August 2021
Viewer engagement grew 44x from Q2 2020 to Q3 2021 to 8 billion minutes watched per month[1
Transaction is expected to provide approximately $400 million in proceeds[2] to Rumble, including a fully committed PIPE of $100 million at $10.00 per share and $300 million of cash held in the trust account of CFVI
Transaction values Rumble at an enterprise value of $2.1 billion[3]
Rumble Founder and Chief Executive Officer to retain voting control to facilitate execution of Rumble’s neutral mission on behalf of all stakeholders
Locals.com has subscribers per community.
- Example: pay $20/month for community X and $5/month for community Y

During Tim Pool podcast (January 2022):

35 million views per month
Est 525 million minutes watched per month

For comparison, see YouTube below…

YouTube Statistics

From various websites[1][2]:

Claim: Est >1.8 trillion minutes watched per month
Claimed 1B hrs viewed per day (60 minutes * 30 days -> 1800B minutes / month)
81% of adults in the US use YouTube.
In 2020, YouTube Premium hit 30 million subscribers. ($11.99/month)
YouTube had a 49% growth rate in the first quarter of 2021.
70% of watch time on YouTube comes from smartphones and tablets.
Globally, YouTube has around 2.24 billion users.
23% of adults in the US regularly use YouTube as a news source.
51% of YouTube users visit the site daily.
YouTube creators upload approximately 30,000 hours of video per hour.
The average YouTuber makes around $18 per 1,000 views.
The most viewed video on YouTube has more than 9 billion views.
YouTube ad revenue per view is between $0.05 and $0.10.

Direct Comparison

YouTube appears to be worth / valued somewhere between $100 and $200B [3]
YouTube appears to have $360+m revenue / month from 30 million subscribers
Rumble valuation appears to be $2.1B
That places Rumble at about 1-2% the value of YouTube.
Rumble viewership is 0.02% of YouTube
Locals.com appears to have at least several million subscribers to communities. Unclear how much revenue is coming from this currently.

Conclusions

It appears Rumble is targeting free-speech advocates, conservatives, gamers, comedians, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaccine groups, etc. YouTube appears to be targeting those same groups and purging them.

At least 100 million Americans fall into those groups. As the election season heats up, I have a sneaking suspicion that Rumble may be one of the only places where those Americans can view content they want. This would further drive growth.

YouTube appears to be worth / valued somewhere between $100 and $200B [3]. That places Rumble at about 1% the value of YouTube. Rumble viewership is 0.02% of Youtube.

Rumble is also suing Google for billions for altering search results.

It seems like a decent opportunity, given:

Upcoming election cycle
Trumps draw (he had tens of millions of twitter followers)
Improved terms on Rumble (they are better than YouTube for creators)
Thiel’s investment history
Locals seems to be growing and have a good revenue stream
Focusing on free-speech and collaborating with community will build trust
YouTube & Paetron is almost directly sending customers to Rumble & Locals

An Analysis on Rumble NASDAQ: CFVI