Enrollment open to founders from anywhere in the world to participate in our next Media cohort

Apply Now
Venture Capital

Venture Capital Firm Investment in Entertainment Companies

Investment in “entertainment” (worded as such) is tough to explain and guide.  Appreciate that the production of entertainment (a film, music, or game) is a creative asset and rarely considered the opportunity in wealth might invest – generally that’s considered financing and we shared a bit about getting a film financed, as an example, here.

Note, investors seek a return upon an exit (acquisition or IPO — going public — of a company) and as such, we have to distinguish the production of entertainment from investment in the company itself.

Still, the question begs, where’s the money for entertainment companies?

We’ve been working on pulling together the data; and while our lists aren’t complete, here are some thoughts…

Our Venture Capital Firm list needs work so bear with the complete thought here. Here’s what we have in our ever growing wiki to give you a hand:

Trust me, we know for a fact that that’s not remotely accurate; it’s a start so feel please comment below or become a contributor on our wiki to add some things we’re missing.

Corporate VC is important to consider as traditional investment doesn’t trickle to “entertainment” too easily

Based on the first half of 2016, note among the 10 most active corporate venture groups Google VenturesComcast VenturesQualcomm Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta, and media oriented corporate venture capital would eclipse wholly half of the top 10 if Samsung Ventures, at #11, had made the 10 most active cut.

A veritable who’s who of major media companies and a substantial reflection of the significant role corporate investment plays, with Microsoft, Hearst, Verizon, Bertelsmann Digital Media, Nokia, and Time Warner among them. Warner Music Group just launch WMG Boost as evidence of the efforts.

Finally, look to the Angels

  • Ron Conway; Silicon Valley’s “super angel” known for his early support of media companies such as Facebook, Buzzfeed, and Napster
  • David Rosenblatt; Who probably wrote the book on online adverstising following his role as CEO of DoubleClick and then President of Google Display. He sits on the board of Twitter and IAC, better known for brands such as Vimeo and CollegeHumor
  • Bono; Yep, Bono. He co-founded Elevation Partners in 2004, a venture firm that focuses on media, entertainment and technology companies
  • Nas; Having invested in dozens of startups, it’s not just his work as the second musician on our list that makes him notable but hist investment in text annotation service Genius and DeviantArt that strikes the media chord
  • Justin Bieber; Beliebit. Beiber is tremendous patron of media ventures with a stake in Tinychat, Stamped, Spotify, and Shots
  • Stanley Kirk Burrell; Also known as MC Hammer, you’ll catch him at Raiders games when he’s not advising media companies such as Pandora and Flipboard
  • Jeff Clavier; Involved in Kongregate (acquired by GameStop) as well as Seesmic, Wildire, and Ustream
  • Brad Svrluga; Who has had his hand in the music and ticketing industries
  • Dave McClure; 500 Startups’ McClure has helped Slideshare, Visually, MoviePigs, Creative Market, and more get off the ground
  • Kevin Colleran; In some familiar media names such as Meerkat, Rockbot, Say Media, LookMark, Media Spike, Pinterest, and SmartThings
  • Naval Ravikant; Whom might be familiar by way of AngelList is in PickaFlick, Sosh, https://SocialMedia.com, Udemy, Twitter, and 9GAG
  • David Cohen; Of Techstars I wanted to mention as they might be the incubator for media. David is in Next Big Sound, Circa, EventVue, Graphicly, KiteReaders, LaunchTrack, SlideBean, Post Rocket, and many more

Vision & Whitepaper

DeSo is a new layer-1 blockchain built from the ground up to scale decentralized social applications to one billion users – more at deso.org

[Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Paul O'Brien

Silicon Valley technology and startup veteran, Paul O'Brien is affectionately known as SEO'Brien for an extensive past in the search industry. Today as CEO and Founder of MediaTech Ventures, O'Brien works in Venture Capital Economic Development, serving the investment and venture capital economies directly, through thought leadership, consulting, and startup development. More, a regional Director of the Founder Institute incubator and mentor in DivInc, Galvanize, and various startup Accelerators.

Related Articles

22 Comments

  1. Hello! I’m Maria Bruna, director and owner of a completely new space movie, based on a book.

    This is a feature one, destinated to theaters, with real models,3D ones, CGI and VFX: it shows us an unseen point of view on the cosmos and its astronomical bodies, providing strong and educative messages, suitable even for childre.

    I have an international crew, included two Asian professionals and I’d like to collaborate even with you, extending the partnerships.

    This is a temporary trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI2BrXwIwrM
    this is the facebbok official page: https://www.facebook.com/pintoeshamy/

    Thanks to my young talented crew and to our fair policy, the movie has a budget quite cheap, despite of great quality level and an unique idea, with no competitors.
    If you want to become part of this project, I’ll glad to hear from you: every kind of support is welcome, from investments, to pre-sells agreements, to distributions contacts. If you are interested, I can send the executive summary.
    Thank you for your time, with joy,
    Maria Bruna Moscatelli

  2. Hi Paul,

    I run Invest in Texas Initiative (iitexas.org) – a state association that promotes and matches international and domestic investors with Texas startups. We work with VCs, angels, HNWs, Family offices throughout the country and internationally. I’d like to learn more about Media Tech Ventures especially in the entertainment space and where we can collaborate. Please let me know if you have some time available. Thank you,
    Richard

  3. My name is Joe Palmer [@savageminded] and I have created The Progeny©?; an alien mythological sci-if/fantasy Omni-series developed into a multi-platform trans media business IP with massive built in scalability. The Progeny©?will be released as an anime styled series on our independent creator subscription based app SavageMinded Entertainment. After 10 years of meticulous planning and writing, I have constructed 7 other related titles to run congruently as anime, video game, merchandise, graphic novel, cinematic film, docu-vlog, podcast and audiobook series’. My goal is to establish the first independent online creator network app that produces its own original fan content and self-markets through cross-platform media. The Progeny©?animated series is a 6 season, 24 1-hour long episode per season mega story that is blueprinted for the first 6 years of business. The adjoining 7 titles set for cross-platform release are mapped out for the next 30+ years with groundbreaking storytelling through a fresh neoteric character universe. With a feature length launch movie, full business plan, complete story synopsis, and 6 season blueprint already written and ready for production we are set to dominate our target market right now. I appreciate the time and consideration and look forward to any feedback and potential collaboration.

    Investor Deck:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YbV60pLZBSHfYqS2ahp5jaahlnwDn6hg/view?usp=drivesdk

    Business Plan:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lU7lMAL6JUM3MFDT0eKMoW5FEeZsGHGu/view?usp=drivesdk

    Series Synopsis:
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fTHFcBOpAgEpJDdKpdC_Tap_p3uMzTm_/view?usp=drivesdk

  4. Dear Mr. and Ms

    I am Daido Fuchie from Colopl Next, Japanese VC focused on entertainment and XR Game, Music, Fashion, Media, Influencer, VR, AR, etc
    https://www.coloplnext.co.jp/

    Our parent company Colopl,Inc is mobile game developer in Japan and listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange.
    https://colopl.co.jp/en/

    I saw your website.
    If there is a chance to collaborate with, we would love to discuses how to.

    I hope to hear from you soon.

    Best,

    Daido

    COLOPL,Inc. / COLOPL Next Inc.

    Daido Fuchie
    [email protected]
    URL: https://www.coloplnext.co.jp/
    Skype daido.fuchie_2

    4-20-3 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku.
    Yebisu Garden Place Tower 11?
    Tokyo, 150-6011, Japan

  5. Daughters of the Sun is a bestselling book about the Inca Empire. he Cloud Warriors, written by Theresa Vivanco, a Peruvian American. It details the tribulations of the Cloud Warriors, a fair-skinned tribe living in the northern Peru and the Inca’s arch enemies and their fight to recover their young daughters, kidnapped by the Inca Empire.

    Many people, even in the entertainment industry, have no idea the amount of revenue that can be generated by a successful historical TV series. The pilot is already written, the series will be filmed in various locations in Peru. Legitimate entertainment investors will receive a detailed business plan with solid, proven numbers based on research of similar TV series like Vikings, which is heading to its final season this year, leaving a big void in this type of programming.

  6. One more to add: Remagine Ventures, investing in Entertainment tech, gaming, eSports in Israel and Europe and backed by some of the largest corporates in this space.

  7. I read the entire Bloomberg Beta manual (which they want all potential founders to read before contact) and they specifically stated that they will NOT invest in entertainment.

  8. No doubt Jennifer. We all play in this interesting world with a line increasingly disappearing, where investors are wrapping their arms around how Media means News but also means other forms of Media…. how Entertainment Companies are Apple, Spotify, and Ubisoft… but that isn’t the same as investing in artists, films, and music….

  9. Could you also comment if any of these entities invest in a company based in India.

    I am Co-founder of Filmboard, which is a pioneering online B2B marketplace platform for media & entertainment industry. Its disrupting the way Films, TV Series, Web Series, Ad Films are made in India. We’ve been up and running for a bit, and have got decent initial traction. Our funding till now has been from some top professionals (individuals) all over the world. We are now looking out for our first institutional round. There’s nothing like this in India and we feel we have a great opportunity to become a generic brand globally.

    Look forward to hearing from you.

  10. There are over 250 Division III football programs. D3 athletes don’t receive athletic scholarships. This untapped talent source will be drafted to play a new safer form of football game intended for Spring. The game is called Skirmish and it’s tailor made for gambling.

    The firrt Skirmish Division will be a centrally located league made up of 4 teams. Each team will play the other twice over a 6 week schedule concluding with 2 seeded playoff games and a Championship game played on the last Saturday in May.

    The game this previously untapped talent source will be playing is completely different. Skirmish hasmore ways to score which include two types of field goal and a scoring touchback.

    All game are to be played at one location streamed and televised in order to draw sports tourists to a casino city like Philadelphia.

    When the general public learns about a league that helps recent graduate athletes. I believe every blue collar American will watch Skirmish religiously once they know about blue collar athletes playing pro ball to wipe out student debt.

    Skirmish is not an attempt to be another NFL. When the 4 team Philly model establishes a stable profit, Chicago, Houston and Vancouver follow.

    Skirmish will also do well internationally.

  11. I’d like to assemble a corporate structure which will purchase an abandoned school property in the suburbs to house and run the completely self contained Skirmish Division. Through scheduling, each team will share one infrastructure keeping overhead low.

    The venue should be a small 5000 seat horseshoe football stadium in order to have high per seat pricing and adequate free parking.

    The league requires television and a partnership with the casinos and airlines to package weekends of Skirmish football Heaven.

  12. Digipower Media is a new age Digital Media and Entertainment organization. Through our authoritative house of brands – we aim to deliver stories, tales, facts and information that will shape the conversations of Gen Z & Millenial Indians for the years to come.

    Our commitment to
    Entertaining and empowering viewers,
    Adapting and creating media technology
    Revolutionizing impact for digital advertisers
    We are shaping the next generation of media and journalism!
    Legal Status: Registered with Ministry of Corporate Affairs , Govt of India (Section 8 Pvt. ltd company)
    Registered with Start up India , Govt. of India,
    We are looking for seed funding for further expansion
    Ram Bharati, Founder
    Digipower Media Foundation
    Tel;9717654115
    email; [email protected]

  13. my name is Denyzio Laboy. I am co-founder of a start-up tech company which bridges the gap between entertainment & e-commerce. Having launched this past April, we are currently converting 20% of traffic into registered users. We have changed the paradigm and disrupted the world of E-commerce, on how artist and entertainers are promoted, marketed, and branded. We are the FIRST and ONLY platform to allow its users to now appear as e-commerce serviceable products. in Just 4 months of launching we already have over 4k users. With your support we will change artist and entertainers’ lives forever! We are actively looking for VC’s we think are great fit for us. if this is something that interests you please reach back out to me and lets chat! Here are few promo videos of a few celebs who have stepped up to support… Please provide me your email and contact and we will send you our Pitch deck if interested.

    https://youtu.be/pbXyuKuWblo

    https://youtu.be/ZhlgYWbYiBM

    https://youtu.be/Lc5YJFLSMQY

    https://youtu.be/ETC1FEtA10c

    https://youtu.be/Dt8Yr04FH08

    https://youtu.be/tH72BYQAK1M

  14. I am a live entertainment company. we have produced shows in las vegas for many years.
    There is no good place tp go. Its a win or loss fast pace investment that has almost no exit plan. at least with movies or music you own a asset that may recoup over time.

  15. My name is Jay Sherrard CEO of Mass Media Films, a full-service media production company.

    One of the issues that make it difficult to find qualified investors for my sector is the use of the term entertainment. When content production companies are placed under the entertainment umbrella this term skews perception and removes any nuance. What’s amazing to me is that every industry in the world needs some type of messaging service including the government. 

    Please see the below description of the media services my company provides and you will find that entertainment is not the whole story. We need to help educate investors about this multi-billion-dollar industry. 

    Mass Media Films is a full-service, SDB/MBE-certified video production company, and creative agency. MMF produces photography and video advertising campaigns for clients in virtually every industry. From script to screen, our team of multi-media professionals is the best in the business. Our job is to engage, captivate and educate your target audience through the power of video, photography, visual effects, and original music.

    [(https://www.linkedin.com/company/mass-media-films)

    https://massmediafilms.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button