Clash TV is currently raising at a $12 million valuation, offering investors a SAFE with no discount. This is a rather high price given the very limited traction the company has achieved to this point. The lack of discount on the SAFE is also somewhat unappealing for investors. Due to these factors, ClashTV’s price score is its lowest across all five metrics.

Overall, the market opportunity facing ClashTV is favorable. The company sits between two main markets — sports streaming and digital advertising. According to one source, the global digital advertising space was worth $325 billion in 2019. This figure should climb to $389 billion this year. A second source indicated that the market this year should be worth about $399 billion, $157.6 billion of which is attributable to the US alone. Meanwhile, the sports streaming market was valued at $11.3 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow at a strong CAGR of 14.56% over the next few years. Between the ample size of the digital advertising market and the healthy growth of sports streaming, ClashTV has the opportunity to secure a sizable niche for itself. Its market score is above average as a result.

At the helm of ClashTV are its two co-founders. The first of these is Ivan Isakov, the company’s CEO. Prior to starting this business, Isakov was the co-owner and chairman of the board of MTV Networks Vostok, a joint venture with Viacom that included the operation of 13 different channels. Prior to his time at Viacom, Isakov worked in investing. He was a managing principal at Crown Point Equity, and he spent 14 years at Columbus Nova, a major Russian investment company that specializes in private equity deals. Overall, his experiences on the investment side could bring value to the company. However, it is his leadership experience and work with Viacom that is most encouraging.

The second co-founder of ClashTV is Brian Lisi. Lisi has also served as the CEO of iOiO, a SaaS accelerator. Before that, he worked as the CEO of Qello, a platform that works on curated content involving full-length concerts and music documentaries. Prior to that, Lizi was CEO at Azure Media, which operated as a digital marketing and mobile development firm.  The emphasis that he has on the media space will be particularly valuable for a company like ClashTV. 

Overall, these co-founders bring a strong mix of leadership skills and industry experience. Thus, ClashTV’s team score is very strong.

By bundling multiple social media and interactive features together, ClashTV has created a service that is not readily available at this time. At present, the company is either operating with or working on launching with Fubo Sports Network, PlutoTV, Sling, and Vizio. However, that’s not all. The idea of bringing all of these social components into, essentially, a sort of white-label service is definitely unique compared to the more traditional route of creating a niche product. Having said that, though, many of the individual features that the company is pushing are less original, such as communicating with users during live streaming events. Twitch and YouTube already provide this service. What makes ClashTV different is the way it is trying to make a space for itself and that it appears to be an aggregation of quality features. Because of all of this, the differentiators score for ClashTV is strong. 

In 2020, ClashTV hosted 401,970 streams. In the fourth quarter alone, it averaged 14,676 streams per event. This traction is largely thanks to its partnerships, including one that allotted it over four hundred hours of premium MMA content. ClashTV is also involved with Viacom CBS and is in talks with other potential partners. All of this is extremely impressive, though purely financial performance is somewhat lacking. In 2019, the company generated nothing in the way of revenue, and in 2020, revenue was just $2,636. In 2019, the company generated a net loss of $217,564. This amount grew in 2020 to a loss of $348,429. Operating cash outflows, meanwhile, grew from $27,698 in 2019 to $430,954 in 2020. However, if ClashTV is able to maintain its strong early traction in terms of streams and users, it could see revenue continue to grow. Therefore, the company’s performance score is high.

In all, ClashTV has a low amount of risk at this time. In fact, of the different types of risks that we look at, only two are considered elevated. The first of these relates to the team. While the team running the company is strong, there are risks associated with having just one or two key people at the top. Losing these individuals can potentially threaten the future of the entire enterprise. The company will also need to build out its team as it grows, and securing the proper hires is always a concern. The other main risk  with ClashTV is financial in nature. As already discussed, the low revenue and significant losses and cash outflows of the company are dangerous. They imply a higher risk of the company failing as well as a higher risk of future dilution for shareholders who are buying today. 

The high price being placed on ClashTV is a problem that could limit its upside potential, especially if a down round were to ever occur in the future. This is further magnified by the company’s poor financial performance, which alone is worrisome. If ClashTV does not succeed in turning its early user traction into revenue, the company could struggle to grow or thrive. Lastly, there is the prospect of competition. Partnering up with contact providers can be an attractive way to grow, but it also makes the company beholden to the same partners. At some point, it can be a risk because those same partners may elect to create similar products of their own. ClashTV has little in the way of defensibility at this time, and a more established media company could replicate the aggregation of features that it is offering.

There is no denying that the market opportunity for ClashTV is large and expected to keep growing. The founding team also brings a good combination of leadership and industry expertise. By combining useful features from preexisting streaming services and emphasizing interactivity, the product is fairly differentiated compared to other services out there. ClashTV already has a number of partnerships to work in its favor, and non-financial traction has been undeniably appealing. All of these suggest that there could be a bright future ahead for the company if everything goes according to plan.

Putting everything together, it seems clear to us that ClashTV has potential. A large and growing market, solid leadership, relative differentiation, and current traction all seem to work in the company’s favor. That said, there are certain risks inherent in the business model, and similar platforms could easily become competitors in the near future. Overall, the risk/reward profile of the company seems fairly balanced, and because of this, ClashTV is a Neutral Deal at this time.        

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Analysis written by Daniel Jones.