Quibi.
Quibi Holdings · Jeffrey Katzenberg, Meg Whitman · Media & Entertainment
A short-form mobile streaming service that raised $1.75 billion and lasted barely six months.
$0
raised
8 mo (239 days)
2020–2020
Poor Product-Market Fit
Built for a demand that never showed up
Raised $1.75B. Lasted 6 months.
TLDR
Quibi launched in April 2020 with a premise that sounded reasonable in a pitch deck: premium, big-budget video in chapters under ten minutes, made for the commute. It arrived in the same month the commute did not exist.
The product was mobile-only at launch, with no TV casting and no way to screenshot or share a clip — decisions that starved it of exactly the free word-of-mouth that short video runs on. Subscriber conversion after the free trial collapsed, and by October 2020 the company announced it was shutting down and returning what capital remained to investors. The library was later sold to Roku.
The failure was not a lack of money, talent, or celebrity. It was a product built around a moment of attention that its audience had already filled with something free.
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