HarbourView Equity Partners is leading an $85 million investment in Animaj, a kids and family content-focused entertainment company.<\/p>\n
Animaj uses proprietary GenAI production tools and what it calls a “multi-platform franchise-building model”.<\/p>\n
The Paris-headquartered company says that it “acquires and scales high-potential IPs by using data-driven insights, automating animation pipelines through AI,” and then distributing that content to platforms like YouTube, Roblox, TikTok, Spotify.<\/p>\n
Animaj reports to have a monthly global audience of\u00a0242 million<\/strong> unique viewers on YouTube, and claims to attract the “fifth-largest digital kids’ audience globally”.<\/span><\/p>\n HarbourView has invested in the company alongside French national investment fund Bpifrance.<\/p>\n The round was also joined by Bpifrance, Left Lane Capital, Daphni, XANGE, and Marquee.<\/p>\n New debt financing was provided by J.P. Morgan and Bootstrap Europe, bringing the total capital infusion to $85 million.<\/p>\n According to a press release, the new funding will be used to scale Animaj\u2019s “AI-powered flywheel model” \u2013 which it describes as a “digital-first, multi-platform ecosystem spanning YouTube, Roblox, TikTok, Spotify, and FAST channels.”<\/p>\n The new capital will also “accelerate strategic IP acquisitions,” following Animaj\u2019s purchase<\/a> of the Pocoyo kids entertainment brand in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cWith proven monetization, an experienced team, and a strong pipeline of strategic IP opportunities, they are poised to become a category-defining leader.”<\/p>\n Sherrese Clarke, HarbourView<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cAnimaj is reimagining children\u2019s entertainment for the digital age,\u201d said Sherrese Clarke, Founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners.<\/p>\n \u201cWith proven monetization, an experienced team, and a strong pipeline of strategic IP opportunities, they are poised to become a category-defining leader. We\u2019re thrilled to partner with the Animaj team as they scale globally.\u201d<\/p>\n “Animaj is a new kind of media company: data-driven, AI-powered, digital-first but multiplatform by design.”<\/p>\n Sixte de Vauplane, Animaj <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sixte de Vauplane, Animaj Co-Founder & CEO, added: \u201cWe\u2019re building something that\u2019s never existed before. Animaj is a new kind of media company: data-driven, AI-powered, digital-first but multiplatform by design.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t start with a TV show and hope kids will come. We start with where they already are \u2013 YouTube, Roblox, TikTok, Spotify \u2013 and we build from there.\u201d<\/p>\n “We are delighted to announce Bpifrance\u2019s strategic investment in Animaj, a pioneering player in the use of AI for audiovisual production.”<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Gonzalo, Bpifrance<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jos\u00e9 Gonzalo, Executive Director, Bpifrance Direct Investment, said: “We are delighted to announce Bpifrance\u2019s strategic investment in Animaj, a pioneering player in the use of AI for audiovisual production.<\/p>\n “Its co-founders, Sixte de Vauplane and Gr\u00e9gory Dray, bring an innovative approach that places AI at the core of their value proposition, with a strong focus on editorial quality and the goal of creating high-quality, educational kids & family\u2019s content.<\/p>\n “We firmly believe in their vision and look forward to supporting the company\u2019s growth and future success.”<\/p>\n The investment adds to HarbourView\u2019s growing portfolio of media and IP assets, which spans film, television, music, and content companies such as Mucho Mas Media and MACRO.<\/p>\n Established\u00a0in 2021<\/a>\u00a0by former Tempo Music CEO\u00a0Sherrese Clarke\u00a0<\/strong>with backing from Apollo Global Management, HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired over 70 music catalogs encompassing over\u00a035,000<\/strong>\u00a0songs across both master recordings and publishing income streams.<\/p>\n Earlier this month the company\u00a0secured $500 million in additional debt financing from investment giant KKR<\/a>, secured\u00a0<\/strong>via a private securitization backed by its music portfolio.<\/p>\n This latest transaction follows a previous\u00a0$500 million<\/strong>\u00a0in debt financing secured by HarbourView\u00a0in March 2024<\/a>, through a private securitization backed by its catalog of music royalties, and led by KKR.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s portfolio includes music from\u00a0T-Pain<\/a>, James Fauntleroy,\u00a0George Benson<\/a>, Noel Zancanella, Fleetwood Mac\u2019s\u00a0Christine McVie<\/a>, Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo,\u00a0Nelly<\/a>, Jeremih, Wiz Khalifa, Kane Brown, Full Force and more.<\/p>\n HarbourView reports to have amassed roughly\u00a0$2.67 billion<\/strong>\u00a0in regulatory assets under management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Animaj reports to have a monthly global audience of\u00a0242m unique viewers on YouTube<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":181421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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