CURI CuriosityStream Inc.
$2.37
CuriosityStream Inc. Q3 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript
AI Conference Call Analysis
Sign in or subscribe to read.Shamali
Conference Operator
Good afternoon. My name is Shamali, and I'll be your conference operator today. I'd like to welcome everyone to the CuriosityStream third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. And if you would like to ask a question, you may press star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Vanessa Gillen, CuriosityStream's Senior Vice President of Operations. You may begin your conference.
Vanessa Gillen
Senior Vice President of Operations, CuriosityStream
Thank you, and welcome to CuriosityStream's discussion of its third quarter 2026 financial results. Leading the discussion today are Clint Stinchcomb, CuriosityStream's Chief Executive Officer, and Sean Piche, CuriosityStream's Chief Financial Officer. Following management's prepared remarks, We will take questions from the analyst community. But first, I'll review the safe harbor statement. During this call, we may make statements related to our business that are forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, but rather are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Our actual results could differ materially from expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements. Please be aware that any forward-looking statements reflect management's current views only, and the company undertakes no obligation to revise or update these statements, nor to make additional forward-looking statements in the future. For a discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to our SEC filings available on the SEC website and on our Investor Relations website, as well as the risks and other important factors discussed in today's press release. Additional information will also be set forth in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, when filed. In addition, reference will be made to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures can be found on our website at investors.curiositystream.com. Unless otherwise stated, all comparisons will be against our results for the comparable 2025 period. Now I'll turn the call over to Clint.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Thank you, Vanessa. Q3 was a strong quarter for Curiosity. We were reporting revenue of $21 million, up from $18.4 million a year ago. Net income increased by $8.6 million to $4.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA grew 67% to $5 million. Licensing revenue increased 35% to $11.7 million. And while subscription revenue declined slightly, the profitability of our The value and durability of the extensive intellectual property we control, millions of hours and terabytes of premium video and audio and operational data, continues to drive momentum. We are pleased with our progress, but our focus remains squarely on execution and on our longer-term objectives. Building curiosity into a company that informs, inspires, and entertains, and in so doing, generates $100 million or more in reliable, recurring, and increasingly profitable and predictable annualized revenue. Our progress reflects the strength of a business model built around valuable intellectual property, proven revenue streams, and disciplined capital allocation. What is particularly encouraging about our performance is the operating leverage we are beginning to demonstrate. Revenue grew 13% this quarter, while adjusted EBITDA increased 67%.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
That relationship is important.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
It illustrates the potential for our business to generate meaningful earnings growth as we expand revenue without a corresponding increase in our cost structure. In reimagining how we work internally and with what and whom we work externally, and through adopting and embracing AI productivity tools, we have created an annualized expense structure going forward for our cost to operate the business, Thank you for joining us today. The continued investment in superintelligence is creating new markets for high-quality, rights-controlled data. Nearly all of our cash licensing revenue in Q3 was generated directly from AI developers. Curiosity is well-positioned to continue to serve these partners and markets through our premium video and audio library and our expanding portfolio of operational data, including proprietary software code and associated development records. We believe the value of these assets extends beyond any single licensing transaction. As AI models become more capable, the demand for differentiated, legally licensable, and high-quality data is likely to evolve. Our strategy is to position Curiosity to address that demand across multiple data types, customers, and use cases. Importantly, we are focused not simply on generating licensing revenue, but on building durable commercial relationships that create opportunities for recurring revenue, The exploitation of additional rights and expanded use of our intellectual property over time. Our subscription business remains an equally important component of our strategy. We are managing this business with a clear emphasis on profitability, retention, and the lifetime value of our subscribers. Our objective is not growth at any cost. It is to build a durable, profitable subscriber base through compelling content, effective distribution partnerships, and disciplined customer acquisition. The significant improvement in subscription profitability demonstrates the value of that approach. We continue to believe there are attractive opportunities to expand our reach and our subscriber relationships. But we will pursue these opportunities with the same financial discipline that is contributing to our current results. Our intellectual property can be monetized repeatedly across multiple customers and distribution channels. As we continue to scale, an increasing portion of incremental revenue can contribute to earnings and cash flow. That is fundamental to how we think about building long-term shareholder value. We also recognize that quarterly results will not always follow a straight line, particularly in licensing, where the timing and size of individual transactions can affect reported performance. Our responsibility is to continue expanding our pipeline of opportunities, improving revenue visibility, and building a more predictable business over time. Much of our success is always going to be the direct or indirect results of talented, smart, and amazing people who are motivated to accomplish an important mission doing great work. On that note, I want to welcome Sean Piche, who joined Curiosity in September as our new CFO. Sean brings an exceptional combination of financial, operational, and transactional experience, accumulated over 30 years of working with some of the world's leading media and technology companies. Sean has joined Curiosity at an important point in our evolution. We've established a profitable business, demonstrated the growing value of our intellectual property, and created opportunities to scale our revenue and our earnings. His expertise in capital allocation, strategic transactions, and financial management will be invaluable as we pursue these opportunities. I'm particularly pleased to have a CFO who thinks not only about financial performance, but about how to create and maximize long-term shareholder value. That is our shared objective, and I believe Sean will make an important contribution to achieving it. Looking ahead, our priorities are straightforward. Grow and diversify licensing revenue, sustain and improve subscription profitability, expand the value of intellectual property, and maintain rigorous discipline over cost and capital allocation. We believe curiosity is a differentiated set of assets, business model with increasingly attractive economics, and significant opportunities ahead. Our third quarter results provide further evidence that our strategy is working. We intend to build on that progress, remain focused on the work that creates the greatest value, and continue translating the strength of our intellectual property into revenue, earnings, cash flow, and returns for our shareholders. Our objective is not simply to build a larger curiosity, Thank you, Clint, and good afternoon, everyone.
Sean Piche
Chief Financial Officer, CuriosityStream
This is my first earnings call since joining CuriosityStream as Chief Financial Officer in September, and I look forward to getting to know many of you in the months ahead. I would like to focus my remarks on three things. Our top-line revenue, the growth of our licensing business, including cash licensing, and the progress we are making in reducing expenses and running the company more efficiently. I will then turn to cash flow, including how we are investing to grow the business while generating the cash to support a sustainable dividend before closing with our out. We generated third quarter revenue of $20.7 million, an increase of 13% compared to $18.4 million in the prior year period. Licensing revenue was $11.7 million, up 35% year over year, and accounted for 57% of our revenue this quarter. Over $7 million came from cash licensing agreements led by new AI licensing deals entered into during the quarter. The balance came from barter arrangements in which we exchanged titles from our library to acquire new programming for our subscription service. That growth reflects continued demand for our content and data assets across both traditional content licensing and AI-related opportunities. Gross profit was $10.1 million, representing a gross margin of 49%, compared to $10.8 million and a gross margin of 59%, met their accord last year. We view a gross margin approaching 50% as a strong result, reflecting the shift in our revenue mix toward AI licensing. The change from last year is driven by our revenue mix, including revenue sharing with our content partners on AI licensing and amortization of programming acquired through Barter, and we believe our licensing model continues to offer attractive opportunities to monetize our library and data assets. We continue to make meaningful progress on our cost structure. Advertising and marketing and general administrative expenses declined by $8.8 million, or 58%, compared to the third quarter of 2025. Excluding stock-based compensation and restructuring costs, these expenses declined by $3 million, or 36%, reflecting more efficient marketing spend and our focus on aligning our expense base with the business. Subsequent to quarter ends, we completed a reduction in force as part of our broader commitment to optimizing our cost structure. As a result, we expect to record a one-time charge of approximately $0.6 million in the fourth quarter, primarily related to severance and associated employee benefit costs. We expect these actions to result in annualized savings of approximately $1.2 to $1.5 million. Together with the other cost actions we have taken this year and greater use of productivity tools across the organization, we expect advertising and marketing and general and administrative expenses, excluding stock-based comp and restructuring costs, Thank you for joining us. Debt income includes $0.9 million of non-cash gains related to our acquisition of the remaining interest in the Spiegel Venture, primarily from the remeasurement of our previously held interest. The third quarter was our seventh consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, which increased 67% to $5 million, and our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 24% from 16% a year ago. Through the first nine months of the year, adjusted EBITDA totaled $17.1 million at a margin of 29%, The improvement in adjusted EBITDA was driven by our continued cost discipline. Advertising and marketing expenses were $1.9 million lower as we continued to focus our subscriber acquisition spending on the most efficient channels, and general and administrative expenses, excluding stock-based compensation and other items excluded from adjusted EBITDA, were $0.8 million lower, reflecting reduced professional fees and compensation costs. These savings more than offset the effect of our revenue mix on gross profit. At the same time, our licensing business, which accounted for 57% of our revenue this quarter, can grow with little incremental fixed costs, so as it becomes a larger share of the business, more of each additional dollar of revenue flows through to earnings. As a result, we generated operating income of $3.7 billion compared with an operating loss of $4.5 million a year ago, and net income of $4.8 million, or $0.08 per diluted share. I'd also like to spend a moment on the economics of our AI licensing business because they differ from those of our traditional content licensing. The agreements we are signing with companies developing AI technologies include large, multi-million dollar deals. They draw on our library, including raw footage and other assets, and they also draw on content from our partners. Where partner content is included, we share a portion of the revenue with those partners, and that revenue share can represent 50% or more of a given deal. These agreements generate attractive returns with little incremental fixed costs, and our ability to aggregate and deliver content at that scale is an important reason AI developers choose to work with us. It does mean, however, that the margins on our AI licensing will look different from what you might expect if that revenue came entirely from our own library, and you can see that reflected in our cost of revenues this quarter. Turning to cash flow. Operating activities generated $4.5 million of cash in the third quarter. bringing operating cash flow for the first nine months of 2026 to $1.5 million. In the first half of the year, operating cash flow was negative despite strong adjusted EBITDA, and the main reason was timing. The $10 million licensing agreement we entered into in the second quarter, for which we recognize as $8.5 million of revenue, was payable in four annual installments of $2.5 million beginning in mid-2027. So the revenue and EBITDA were recognized in the second quarter, while the cash flow come in over the next several years. We are focused on investing to grow the business while generating the cash to support a sustainable dividend. As we have stated, we aim to fund the entire dividend in 2027 from free cash flow, and we view the third quarter as a step in that direction. Our earnings of $0.08 per share were in line with our quarterly dividends. During the quarter, we paid our regular quarterly dividend of $0.085 per share, or approximately $5 million, and we ended the quarter with $10 million in cash and investments, no debt, and an undrawn $10 million revolving credit facility. Turning to our outlook, based on our results in the first nine months and our current visibility, we are raising our full year 2026 guidance of revenue between 77 million and 82 million to 79 million and 82 million, and adjusted EBITDA from 18 million and 22 million to 20 million and 22 million. To sum up the quarter, revenue grew 13%, licensing grew 35%, and our cost discipline drove a 67% increase in adjusted EBITDA to $5 million. Our cost actions position us to reduce advertising and marketing and general and administrative expenses by approximately 20% in the second half, supporting our focus on investing to grow the business while generating the cash to support a sustainable dividend. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.
Shamali
Conference Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from the line of Jason Krayer with Craig Hallam. Please proceed with your question.
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
Thank you, guys. Welcome to the call, Sean.
Sean Piche
Chief Financial Officer, CuriosityStream
Thank you.
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
So really nice quarter on the license revenue side. Sean, sorry, Clint, you had mentioned that the vast majority of that came from AI license deals. Wondering if you can unpack that a little bit, where those sources are. Like a year ago, we had talked about a little bit more contribution from the Tier 1 LLMs, and in the last couple of quarters, we talked about contribution from Tier 2s and kind of some off-the-shelf packaging. So just wondering if you can kind of square away where demand came from.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Yeah, appreciate that question, and Jason, we're glad to have Sean as well. So thank you for that. In this quarter, the AI licensing revenue was primarily from the Tier 1 guys. I mean, that's just still where the kind of overwhelming majority of spending is happening. You know, we fully anticipate that the roster will expand, but that's where it was for Q3 for sure. If I can, as far as the concentration is concerned, I think that trend will continue for some time. But our point of view, I think a pretty informed point of view from talking to a lot of people every single day, is that the overall training market is going way, way up before it goes down. And we believe, like many others, that most enterprise companies will have their own models by 2028, 2029. And all of these enterprise companies will need data for training their models just not as much as the Frontier Labs. So it's not inconceivable that you could have a market for training data that goes from 20 companies today to 5,000.
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
Can you talk about the appetite for those off-the-shelf solutions that we talked a little bit more about last quarter?
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Yeah, I think in the most recent quarter, there's a heavy appetite for some of the most scarce content. I think The most scarce content, at least on the video side, is in the scripted space. And just in an effort to meet people where they are, we have a wide variety of content. I don't know that people necessarily associate CuriosityStream, certainly on the subscription side, as being a company that controls a lot of scripted entertainment, but we control a lot of scripted entertainment. That's in high demand for a number of reasons, obviously. AI is good at a lot of things today. It's still kind of early stages as it relates to being able to, I think, tell stories and tell compelling stories. So among other things, scripted entertainment is in demand to help those efforts.
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
And then last one for me. I just wanted to ask about, you know, the appetite for these barter deals, why these barter deals make sense for curiosity and kind of what we should anticipate going forward between the mix of these barter arrangements versus kind of cash generating revenue deals. Thank you.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Yeah, no, a great question. I really appreciate that. I think, you know, One area, among others, where Sean has already been really helpful is in really just continuing to focus on our cost base. As I mentioned in my remarks, we really believe today that based on a lot of the work that we've done with whom we are working with now externally, with whom we're working with internally, the productivity tools at our disposal, We've created an annualized expense structure going forward where our costs to operate the business and to pay our annual dividend are below $40 million annually. And as such, can be funded virtually entirely from our subscription business. And one way to ensure that we do that is through thoughtful barter consideration. That is, fulfilling various content needs that we have through means other than
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
Pure Cash Spending.
Sean Piche
Chief Financial Officer, CuriosityStream
Thanks.
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
Thank you.
Sean Piche
Chief Financial Officer, CuriosityStream
Thank you, Jason.
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
Patrick.
Shamali
Conference Operator
And Patrick, your line is now live.
Patrick Sholl
Analyst, Barrington Research
Oh, thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to follow up on something from the prepared remarks on the licensing revenue. You had mentioned that some of the licensing revenue would be paid in installments over 2027. I was just kind of curious if there's been any, like, shift over, I guess, the terms over when those receivables come in on the AI licensing side and if there's any sort of mismatch between When the LLMs pay you versus when you have revenue share to your other partners that you're aggregating the rights on. Thank you.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Thanks for that question, Patrick. The deal that Sean was referring to was a traditional licensing deal that we did in second quarter. And in light of the scope and scale of that agreement, we agreed to payment schedule that went out over a period of time that we wouldn't agree to and that we have never agreed to as it relates to our AI licensing agreements. Typically, with our AI licensing agreements, we're getting paid everything within, you know, call it four to six months, and then we have a period of time where we can pay out our rev share partners as well.
Sean Piche
Chief Financial Officer, CuriosityStream
Yeah, I would just add to that. Okay. What we like about that business is that It's no investment in working capital for us. So we can grow the AI licensing business, and the way our deals are structured with our customers and then our partners is such that we don't need to make an investment in working capital to grow that business. So we like it from that perspective. It's cash flow positive for us and working capital positive. So hopefully that helps.
Patrick Sholl
Analyst, Barrington Research
Yes. Thank you. Sorry, I missed the comments about me. One other question I had on the subscription business. Do you have, I guess, could you outline like any additional market launches or channel store launches that you kind of view as opportunities to help kind of maintain that business so that you would be able to largely fund the operating expense levels out of that business? Or I guess, you know, maybe just sort of where you kind of see like that business is in its, I guess, maturity state.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Thank you. Great question, Patrick. Appreciate that. Our subscription business is absolutely critical to our strategy. We're managing the business with a clear emphasis on profitability and retention, lifetime value, and essentially leveraging every third-party distribution opportunity that's available to us to continue to grow our overall subscription revenue. In the last quarter, we launched in a couple of places, I think most significantly with Amazon in Canada, with some launches in Latin America. The beauty is we have a global service, so as our channel store partners, as they roll out services throughout the world, we'll roll out with them. And we've had a We've had a steady stream of that this year. We anticipate a more significant stream of that next year as they move into more international markets. We're in 13 languages today, but with the really terrific advancements that are being made in translation, in large part enabled by AI, we see next year as kind of an inflection point as it relates to languaging our content far beyond the number of languages that we have today, but done in a really compelling way based on just a lot of the advancements that we've seen.
Jason Kreyer
Analyst, Craig-Hallum
Okay. Thank you.
Shamali
Conference Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Laura Martin with Needham & Company. Please proceed with your question.
Laura Martin
Analyst, Needham & Company
Hi there. My one for you is how many hours are you up to total that you're licensing with LLMs? I know you used to report it every quarter. And then secondly, one of the things staying on LLMs. One of the things you said, Clint, is that over time you were hoping, it sounds like it's true, the big guys will come back and license for different rights and different things. So can you give us an update on that? And then do you have any churn? Do you either have content churning out or you're no longer representing them or LLMs? who have stopped licensing from you. Those are my three questions for you. And then Sean, welcome. I would like you to explain what is happening to the cash. So I'm looking at the balance sheet and your cash in the last nine months between cash and your short-term investment is down 20 million. And you just told us that the working capital for AI licensing is positive because you get it from them in 60 days or six months and then you have to pay out your red shares after that. So I don't understand where is the cash going in this on the balance sheet, please.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Good question. I think that's a really important question, so I'm glad that you asked that, Laura. And I think if you look at where it went sequentially from Q2 to Q3, it's roughly flat. In the first half of the year, we had some significant expenses that we're not having in the second half of the year and don't anticipate having going forward. A lot of that was around timing. We also, you know, we bought back stock. We paid a larger bonus than we paid in the past and that we'll, you know, that we would pay in the future. And obviously we paid the dividend, we increased the dividend as well. So you want to add anything to that, Sean?
Sean Piche
Chief Financial Officer, CuriosityStream
No, I would just say, I mean, and it's a good observation and a good point in that, I mean, historically, A lot of the dividend was being funded from excess cash on the balance sheet, I would say. And we did have a couple of transactions. Clint mentioned the one in Q2 where a significant amount of revenue related to this transaction we did, but we're going to see the cash flow in over time. But there is a timing aspect of things. And when we look at the business now, what we're focused on is, and I think this quarter is a great proxy for it, EBITDA for us is a really good proxy for our cash generation for the business. And it's relatively in line with the dividend that we're paying. And you can see that coming through this quarter. And we feel good that going forward, we'll have the cash from the business to sustain the dividend from operating cash flow as opposed to excess cash flow on the balance sheet. And these deals I'm talking about on the AI side, the way they're structured and the reason that there's no investment in working capital is because the way they're structured is we pay our partners after we get paid. And these are large deals, the timing of which, when they hit, could have a significant impact on revenue in the quarter, but not necessarily cash. So if we have a few big deals that hit like they did towards the end of the quarter, We're going to see the revenue, but not necessarily the cash until the subsequent quarter. So as it becomes a more consistent revenue mix with that business, I think you'll see the cash flow start to even out over time.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
But thank you for asking that, Laura. I want to make sure that everybody's clear that we don't have any concerns about our cash. The first half of the year was different than, I think, the profile of the company you'll see going forward. particularly because we, on the one large deal, we gave them a payment schedule that is atypical to what we usually do. As it relates to our volume of content, we continue to add to our overall volume. We're over probably 3.4 million hours when you consider everything that we control rights to today. At the same time, we're being a little bit more selective about what we bring in. We've done a number of bespoke deals, you know, I think over the last six months. So we tend to know kind of what's in highest demand there. So we can meet people's volume requirements at the same time. We want to be able to meet, you know, specific bespoke requirements. And also as things like code and other operational data are becoming more important to LLMs, we're bringing in that type of data as well. As it relates to thank you for asking about the rights, it does seem as if there's sort of a new grant of right that emerges every couple of weeks in the world that we're in today. A lot of lawyers really enjoy that. I know our general counsel, Becky, does. And so as it relates to are we monetizing now additional sort of stated rights that we didn't in the past? The answer is yes. And I think that that's, you know, I think going forward, like, we'll even see new grants of rights that emerge that don't necessarily have a name today. And so that's why it's key for us that, you know, and we look at, we consider that to be really good for Curie because we have We have really solid providence around all the IP that we control and license. Does that get to the answer to your question, Laura?
Laura Martin
Analyst, Needham & Company
Sure. Yeah, no, super helpful. Appreciate the color and the granularity. Super helpful.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
You got it.
Shamali
Conference Operator
Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if anyone has any questions, you may press star 1 on your telephone keypad to join the queue. Our next question comes from the line of Frank DeLorenzo with Singular Research. Please proceed with your question.
Frank DeLorenzo
Analyst, Singular Research
Thank you. And, yeah, a couple good quarters in a row now. I want to go back to the discussion on AI and your offerings. The question is if there's a lot of talk about the different types of models out there, open models, internal models, etc. And do you feel that irrespective of kind of where that trend goes moving forward, that your offerings are model agnostic and the demand will be there? And kind of a follow-on to that, there's been a lot of noise around data centers and the build-out, and I was wondering if you think that would have any impact on... The demand on your side at all. Thank you.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
I appreciate that question, Frank. As it relates to us, I would characterize all of that conversation as noise. We don't see the demand for data going down, not in any way. Now, what the labs are looking for, I think, continues to expand. And, you know, as it relates to video and audio and certain code and other proprietary data, We feel like we have an expansive collection and a sufficient collection to meet the needs that are out there today. We're not going to meet every need, but we don't need to meet every need to have a great business in that space. Again, it's still a little bit of the Wild West, which we're certainly not afraid of and embrace, but what that creates is You'll occasionally get some bad actors. And as bad actors emerge, that I think only makes the labs and others run to the good actors. And so we're already seeing where, not dissimilar to sort of the entertainment business of the last 34 years where biggest companies will work with a finite number of super producers. So we're seeing that same dynamic as we did not. in the AI licensing market as well. And again, we have a variety of intellectual property that we can license for a variety of use cases across a variety of platforms. As you mentioned, we've had now seven quarters in a row of
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Positive Adjusted EBITDA.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
We're on track to generate double-digit top-line growth this year, do over $20 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2026. So we feel good about our hand today and our ability to meet the demand as it evolves.
Frank DeLorenzo
Analyst, Singular Research
Okay, thanks. Also, can you give us a little update on the bundling side of the business? Do you see any opportunity there? You have been talking about that in the past. There might be some opportunity kind of early on. but where you see that going in the future and just one follow-on to that, not really directly but just maybe expound upon a little more the international strategy and what you're looking toward there. Are you looking to expand significantly or kind of at the pace you've been doing recently? Thanks.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
That's a great question and as it relates to the subscription business, just emphasize from the outset that That is a business that, if you're not careful, you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on around acquisition and marketing. And that's not a business that we want to be in. So, yes, we love bundling. The nice thing about being in good, solid bundled relationships is that while you're receiving a wholesale rate, the revenue is recurring and it's multi-year. And we'll continue to work with the traditional bundled providers that are obvious to everybody. But at the same time, we do believe that there are an emerging group of companies who control a large number of subscribers with whom we will look to have bundled agreements if we don't. And I'm not saying that – I'll mention a few companies, and I'm not saying that we have agreements with these companies, but just as an example of what I'm talking about, Starlink as an example. 13 million customers today. They're probably going to 50 to 100 over the next several years. Do you think they'll have a video package? I would say it's probably not unlikely. Do you think a YouTube premium with 125 million will have something like that? Those are just a couple of examples of companies who have amassed millions and millions of subscribers and have the attributes of a company that is not necessarily a traditional bundler of media, but it's not hard to imagine how they might be going forward. So as it relates to the subscription side of the business, we'll continue to spend so thoughtfully as it relates to acquiring customers on the direct side, and then we're a big advocate of bundling where it makes sense to bundle.
Frank DeLorenzo
Analyst, Singular Research
Okay, thanks. And maybe just a quick point on the international and relating to that, your prime relationship, if there's a further upside there for expansion with the prime partnerships. Thanks.
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
So, you know, we now control, you know, what was a joint venture that we had with Der Spiegel throughout German-speaking Europe. Germany is the top non-English speaking language for CuriosityStream. And so we see additional upside in that territory. And then as it relates to other international markets, as our channel store partners roll out, I think as they roll out in more international markets, they'll roll out CuriosityStream at a similar pace. in light of some of the advancements with just like payment providers like Stripe. Like it's real easy now to, or a lot easier than it was to go into foreign currencies. And so I think that will be something that ideally enables and accelerates our growth internationally. And then, as I mentioned before, as we, as translation costs, you know, come down significantly, largely enabled by AI, and as they get a lot better. I think that, well, we know that's only a good trend for us. We can go from 13 languages to 80 in essentially over a month or two period. I think that'll have a positive impact on our subscription business. Thank you for that question, Frank.
Frank DeLorenzo
Analyst, Singular Research
Okay, thanks. Maybe just, could you touch on the prime relationship you have and any further thoughts on that coming forward?
Clint Stinchcomb
Chief Executive Officer, CuriosityStream
Sure. I think, you know, we have a good relationship with Prime Video. If you look out over the marketplace, there are a lot of subscription services where 80-85% of their customers come from Prime Video. I mean, we have a good relationship with Prime Video, but Nothing like that for us. It's a fraction of our overall business. They are a great partner, though. They're really good at acquiring subscribers. They're only in a handful of international markets today with their subscription services. We're in most, if not all, of them. If we're not in a particular place, we're usually on the were usually in the queue to be rolled out when they do roll out additional services. So great partner, great relationship, and we don't see that changing anytime soon.
Shamali
Conference Operator
Thanks. Thank you. And this concludes. We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and this also concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your line at this time. We thank you for your participation.