CuriosityStream Inc. (CURI) Earnings
CuriosityStream Inc. is expected to report next earnings on August 4, 2026 (in NaN days), with a consensus EPS estimate of $0.04. CURI has beaten EPS estimates in 6 of its last 12 reported quarters (average surprise -112.5% over the last four).
| Report date | EPS est | EPS actual | Surprise | Revenue | Rev. surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 14, 2026 | $-0.02 | $-0.02 | +0.0% | $15M | -9.7% |
| Mar 11, 2026 | $-0.03 | $-0.06 | -100.0% | $19M | +17.0% |
| Nov 12, 2025 | $-0.02 | $-0.06 | -200.0% | $18M | -2.9% |
| Mar 11, 2025 | $-0.02 | $-0.05 | -150.0% | $14M | -2.5% |
| Aug 13, 2024 | $-0.05 | $-0.04 | +20.0% | $12M | -0.2% |
| Mar 20, 2024 | $-0.15 | $-0.09 | +40.0% | $15M | -6.5% |
| Nov 9, 2023 | $-0.15 | $-0.14 | +6.7% | $16M | -1.0% |
| Aug 14, 2023 | $-0.15 | $-0.19 | -26.7% | $14M | +3.2% |
| May 11, 2023 | $-0.13 | $-0.15 | -15.4% | $12M | +0.0% |
| Nov 9, 2022 | $-0.21 | $-0.09 | +57.1% | $24M | +6.6% |
| Aug 15, 2022 | $-0.28 | $-0.23 | +17.9% | $22M | +5.7% |
| May 12, 2022 | $-0.33 | $-0.30 | +9.1% | $18M | -2.1% |
Source: company filings + earnings calendar. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
Earnings call summary
Q1 FY2026 · May 14, 2026
AI summary of management’s prepared remarks and analyst Q&A. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
Management highlights
• Strategic Priorities and Core Long-Term Goal - The company's primary strategic goal is to reach $100 million or more in annualized recurring, predictable revenue. Management made deliberate near-term choices in Q1 2026 that reduced near-quarter revenue but strengthened long-term growth prospects - Three key strategic investments in Q1: entering into pilot/framework agreements with large-scale partners to test and scale deeper use of CuriosityStream's assets, making modest technology investments to accelerate partner provisioning and improve future partnership profitability, and expanding the scale of 100% owned licenseable IP - CuriosityStream holds rights to over 3 million hours of premium content across factual, sports, news, entertainment, animation, and film, including finished, raw, egocentric, and multi-camera formats, supported by over 200 content and data partners. The differentiated, curated, rights-compliant corpus is difficult and expensive to replicate • Operational and Financial Highlights - Q1 2026 had a broader partner roster than Q1 2025, providing market validation of demand for the company's assets. Discussions with partners now cover expanded asset types including hundreds of millions of production-grade temporal ground truth tokens for frontier AI model training, HDR video, matched raw/finished video, multi-camera video, and egocentric video for physical AI training - The company continues to reduce non-essential expenses by leveraging AI-powered productivity tools. The quarterly dividend was raised by $0.005 to $0.085 per share, with 2026 dividends planned to be paid from operating cash flow - The balance sheet remains strong with $23.4 million in total cash and securities and no outstanding debt, providing significant operational flexibility. The company plans to consolidate ownership of its German business by purchasing remaining stakes from Spiegel and Authentic for approximately $1.9 million in the coming months, a transaction expected to be accretive to earnings
Guidance
• For full year 2026, management expects total revenue in the range of $75 million to $80 million, with double-digit year-over-year growth in both total revenue and cash flow compared to 2025 - Subscription revenue is expected to grow by mid-single-digit percentages in 2026, and AI licensing is expected to surpass subscription revenue to become the company's largest growth engine for the full year - Full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA is guided to the range of $16 million to $20 million - For the first half of 2026, total revenue is expected to be between $35 million and $41 million, with adjusted EBITDA guided to $5 million to $7 million - Management expects the Q1 2026 sequential revenue decline to be temporary, and anticipates 2026 will deliver a significant step up in both revenue and cash flow compared to 2025
Segment performance
CuriosityStream reported total Q1 2026 revenue of $15.2 million, a 0.7% increase year-over-year (YoY) from $15.1 million in Q1 2025. Subscription revenue totaled $8.8 million, which accounted for 57.9% of total Q1 2026 revenue, and was roughly flat sequentially compared to Q4 2025. Licensing revenue totaled $6.0 million, which accounted for 39.5% of total Q1 2026 revenue, representing an 11% increase YoY. Gross margin for the quarter was 56%, an improvement from 53% in Q1 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $0.9 million, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted free cash flow was $1.3 million, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted free cash flow. The company reported a net loss of $1.3 million ($0.02 per share) in Q1 2026, compared to a $0.3 million net income in Q1 2025, driven primarily by a non-cash stock-based compensation charge.
Risks & headwinds
• Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Key risk factors are detailed in the company's SEC filings and Q1 2026 press release - AI licensing revenue is inherently lumpy and does not grow in a linear quarter-to-quarter trend, particularly when working with large new partners on complex, broad rights packages and new data products, creating near-term revenue volatility - The company faces high barriers to entry for competitors, but relies on maintaining the uniqueness and value of its differentiated content corpus to sustain long-term revenue and margin performance
Analyst Q&A
Q: Does the company's increased focus on AI licensing hurt subscriber retention, and what has the response been to the streaming service price increase?
A: AI licensing initiatives have no negative impact on subscriber retention. The two businesses are synergistic, as both require new content, and the broader partner corpus allows CuriosityStream to add more video to its traditional streaming platforms, supporting retention. The price increase has received a positive response, with minimal additional churn and an increase in customer lifetime value.
Q: What is the company's current focus for subscriber acquisition between direct, channel, and wholesale bundled channels?
A: Management is largely agnostic to the source of new subscribers and optimizes for overall subscription revenue growth. Each channel has unique benefits: pure direct subscribers deliver the highest average revenue per user (ARPU), channel store subscribers have lower customer acquisition costs (CPA), and wholesale bundled subscribers have lower ARPU but deliver more stable long-term recurring revenue. All channels are valued equally.
Q: How is licensed content valued in recent renewal transactions, and what content types command higher prices?
A: Large technology companies are expected to spend more than $1 trillion on capital expenditures in 2027, with 2% to 5% allocated to training data sets. Scarce, hard-to-source content types including scripted entertainment, sports, HDR, selective natural history clips, and deeply processed content command higher unit pricing than bulk unprocessed raw content. Orders are increasingly bespoke, and CuriosityStream's broad portfolio across all genres and content formats allows it to meet diverse customer demand.
Q: What is the longevity of the AI licensing business, and why does CuriosityStream continue to operate the subscription business?
A: The AI licensing business has durable long-term demand: existing long-term customers are broadening their orders to include additional data sets, and a new cohort of 50+ companies developing physical AI are now engaging for egocentric and related data sets. The subscription business remains a core asset: it generates reliable, recurring, predictable revenue, has high barriers to entry that would require substantial competitor investment to replicate, grows modestly in mid-single digits annually, and is synergistic with licensing by enabling the company to build its large content corpus and leverage shared partner relationships.