Sony Pictures Entertainment is investing $100M into Cosm and taking a minority stake in the viral immersive entertainment venue whose giant screens have awed sports fans since 2020.
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Sony is providing the capital as the lead investor in Cosm’s Series C financing round, and Cosm will add Sony Pictures CEO Ravi Ahuja to its board of directors as part of the deal announced Wednesday.
Cosm has three open venues, two under construction, and plans for more in the U.S. and abroad. The Los Angeles-based entertainment company builds immersive theaters with massive curved screens and stadium seating.
The tech has gone viral several times since its launch five years ago, with its closest analog being a slimmed-down version of the Sphere at The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas.
“We’ve followed Cosm since before launch and have been impressed with the quality of the experience and the enthusiasm it’s generating with audiences,” Ahuja said in a statement. “We’re excited to support Cosm’s next phase of growth and help bring these experiences to more fans around the world.”
Cosm most recently opened a venue in Atlanta’s Centennial Yards, adding to locations at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles and the 400-acre Grandscape development in North Dallas. It plans to open a Detroit location in September and a fifth location in downtown Cleveland early next year.
The company has a deal with NBCUniversal to screen Premier League soccer matches and Big Ten football games at its theaters in Los Angeles and Dallas, and its venues also host screenings of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. movies including The Matrix and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Bloomberg reported.
Sony Pictures, the entertainment division of the Japanese conglomerate, is already in the theater business. The company purchased Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse in 2024 as the full-service restaurant and theater combo struggled to profitably emerge from the pandemic.
Cosm raised more than $250M in a Series B funding round that closed in July 2024 and valued the company at more than $1B. At the time, the company had programming partnerships with the NBA, UFC, ESPN, NBC Sports, TNT Sports and FOX Sports.
Experiential retail is driving growth in the sector, often backfilling big-box department store space. Entertainment-based retailers from trampoline parks to Netflix House, a themed and memorabilia-driven experience, have around 4,700 locations in the country and plan to open over 700 more, according to JLL. The sector has grown by 246% from 2023 to 2026.
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