A brand new Paris-based multimillion euro fairness fund, devoted to serving to European impartial manufacturing firms scale-up, has launched.
Bannered the Collectively Fund, the fund has an preliminary capitalization of €58M ($66M), with ambitions to develop to €100M ($113M), and is described as the primary fairness fund centered purely on Europe’s impartial movie and TV manufacturing firms.
Right now’s official kick-off follows the signing of an accord by representatives of the European Union’s European Funding Fund (EIF) in Paris on Friday committing €25M ($28.5M) to the fund. Particulars of the opposite buyers are on account of be introduced in Might.
EIF is investing within the Collectively Fund underneath its MediaInvest instrument which was created in 2022 as a part of the European Union’s post-pandemic €400M Media and Audiovisual Motion Plan.
“It’s not solely the 25 million, it’s the stamp of the EIF,” stated Vincent van Steensel, EIF’s Head of Portfolio Ensures, including its involvement will safe and set off additional funding. “We’re the most important fairness investor in Europe. We’ve got a 30% market share, and we all know that sure buyers don’t make investments if EIF just isn’t on board.”
The brand new fund has been designed to assist impartial manufacturing firms scale and strengthen their market presence whereas sustaining their independence, within the face of the rising dominance of built-in audiovisual teams.
Collectively goals to alter this dynamic by appearing as a capital progress fund, supporting firms which have already demonstrated their potential to ship high-quality content material.
Focusing totally on firms producing scripted content material, the typical funding is anticipated to be round €4M ($4.5M), that means a minimum of 25 firms ought to be capable of faucet into the fund.
Operating underneath the auspices of personal fairness agency Axio Capital, the fund is the brainchild of co-directors Alexandra Lebret and Antoine Bodet.
Lebret was managing director of the European Producers Membership (EPC) for 23 years, representing the pursuits of round 185 distinguished producers from throughout Europe, earlier than stepping down earlier this yr. Her time on the EPC means she has an in depth community within the European manufacturing scene and data of its internal and outer workings.
Bodet is a companion at Axio Capital. He has suggested and invested in various French movie and TV firms throughout his profession together with MakingProd, Federation Leisure and Echo Studio, and is at present a board member at Anton.
Previous to becoming a member of Axio Capital, he was govt director at Natixis funding bank-backed non-public fairness administration agency Alliance Entreprendre, the place his media and leisure sector investments included Federation and Paris-based worldwide gross sales firm Playtime.
The duo is already analyzing some 40 purposes and anticipate to unveil Collectively Fund’s first investments as early as Might.
Lebret stated funding selections could be primarily based on an organization’s general imaginative and prescient and marketing strategy for the long run, moderately than particular person tasks or acquisitions.
“The particularity of the fund is that it’s firms on a minority foundation,” stated Lebret. “We’re the impartial resolution for impartial producers for impartial progress. That’s our baseline,” she stated.
Bodet stated money the fund injected into firms by taking a minority stake may very well be used for quite a lot of issues from hiring new workers, to creating IPs, and associated prices akin to shopping for e-book rights or paying writers to develop new concepts.
Each co-directors emphasised the truth that whereas the fund relies in Paris, its focus shall be pan-European, with Lebret noting her robust ties with producers in territories akin to Jap Europe and the Baltics in addition to France.
Lebret stated the fund had been sparked by the truth that whereas the impartial European manufacturing sector is stabilizing within the wake of the disruption attributable to the pandemic and the top of the height TV period, it remained extremely fragmented, at a time when the pool of content material consumers was changing into more and more concentrated.
One other specificity of the fund is that not like conventional fairness funds, Collectively will affords hands-on strategic assist from a devoted group, led by Lebret and Bodet, to supply market insights and monetary steerage.
The long-term mission is to create a extra structured and resilient impartial manufacturing sector in Europe, able to competing on a world scale. The fund has a 10-year lifespan, with a five-year funding interval adopted by a five-year exit technique.
“The thought is to attempt to develop the ecosystem as a result of as you recognize… in comparison with different markets just like the U.S., we’re lagging behind rather a lot,” stated EIF’s van Steensel.
“The significance of retaining some type of sovereignty in Europe, cultural sovereignty is an increasing number of necessary,” he continued. “In the event you put this within the context of at this time with what is going on, sovereignty just isn’t solely a matter of protection, it’s additionally a cultural matter.”
