Disrupters/entrepreneurs
Rose Adkins Hulse Founder Screenhits TV
Adkins Hulse created a service to help consumers grapple with the growing number of streamers. Screenhits TV, launched last month, is an aggregator app that enables users to access all their VOD subscriptions in one place. It was a switch-up for Screenhits, founded in 2012 as a streaming platform for B2B media content sale. Growing up in Santa Monica, Adkins Hulse dreamed of being an actor but after college took a job in media sales and discovered she was good at it. Following stints at Nbcuniversal and the Sundance Institute, she moved from New York to London to remake herself as tech entrepreneur. “I thought the best place to raise funding would probably be Los Angeles, but I knew that if I went back home, if it got tough, I’d probably have just looked for a job at a studio again,” she says.
Ted Farnsworth Founder Zash Global Media Paul Yang
CEO & Founder Lomotif
Farnsworth stirred a major disruption in the theatrical exhibition biz as the CEO of Moviepass, which for a time allowed subscribers to see a movie a day in theaters for $9.95 a month. Now, he’s looking to shake things up with Lomotif, a Tiktok challenger his company, Zash, acquired in February. Lomotif is the brainchild of Yang, who developed the app in Singapore, then spent 2½ years couch-surfing in San Francisco as he courted investors. Lomotif generates 300 million video views a month globally, and intends to become a driver for a content ecosystem that will include homegrown influencers, show formats to be sold internationally and content for Zash’s free-streaming platform Ficto. “We want to be known as the place where creators go to create, and also the place they go to be found by Hollywood,” says Farnsworth.
Zach Katz Shara Senderoff
Partner, CEO Partner, President Raised in Space
Katz and Senderoff seek to disrupt the music biz and the larger entertainment industry with Raised in Space, a consultancy and venture fund they launched in 2019 with music manager and Ithaca Holdings founder Scooter Braun. The company is focused on using cutting-edge technology to allow artists to track real engagement with fans, managing revenue flow from primary and secondary ticket sales and helping to manage publishing rights. So far, it has invested in immersive live streaming platform the Wave, wagering game platform Versus Games and Audigent, a first-party data platform. “We’re very clear on what the biggest pain points are of the music industry and spend all of our time and energy trying to find solutions,” says Katz, who previously served as president of music company BMG. “Because we’re agnostic and not tied to a particular label or roster, it allows us to really reset tables and bring people in with no agenda,” adds Senderoff, who spent five years as the VP of film and digital at the Mark Gordon Co.
Ali Javid
Co-founder, CEO Cameron Woodward
Co-founder, CMO Hesham El-nahhas
Co-founder, CTO Naysawn Naji
Co-founder, Chief Product Officer Wrapbook
A digital payroll management system such as Wrapbook may not be the sexiest product to be selling in Hollywood, but the company’s founders understand the critical role it plays in the entertainment ecosystem, where production workers move from project to project, sometimes dozens of times a year. “Production companies really have it hard, because if you work with a person for a single day, you have the same paper trail required as if you’re working with a person for the span of an entire year,” says Naji. Wrapbook streamlines onboarding, timecards, payroll and insurance for producers, while making it easier for employees to track their payments. So far, it’s been used primarily by commercial productions, but the startup got a big vote of confidence in March when it completed a $27 million Series A funding round led by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Jeffrey Katzenberg (via his holding company Wndrco) and Michael Ovitz.
Ken Kim CEO Webtoon Entertainment, U.S.
Kim works at the frontier of the anyone-can-be-a-digital-artist movement. He leads the U.S. arm of a global video streaming service centered on South Korean-originated digital web comic storytelling by both professionals and nonpros. The U.S. service has grown to 10 million U. S. monthly users; globally it reaches over 72 million. “The younger generation are natural-born creators,” says the L.a.based Kim. “Everyone has their stories.” During the pandemic, Kim says, Webtoon improved advertising sharing with its canvas creators. In the professional realm, the company collaborates with Archie Comics to adapt existing intellectual properties. In November, Webtoon Studios was unveiled to produce professional content, and absorbed a deal with the Jim Henson Co. and works with others. Back in 2002, Kim joined Webtoon’s parent, Naver, the South Korean online search giant. Webtoon began in South Korea in 2004 and arrived in the U.S. in 2014.
Greg Silverman
Founder, CEO Gideon Yu Co-chairman Stampede Ventures
Want a poster child for today’s entertainment-tech convergence? Look no further than the teaming of Silverman (former president, creative development and worldwide production at Warner Bros.) and Yu (onetime CFO of Facebook and Youtube; co-owner of the San Francisco 49ers) with their fellow co-founder Jason Ma (co-owner of Triller, co-founder of 88Rising and East West Ventures) to form the independent production company Stampede Ventures in 2017. Its Silicon Valley heritage is evident in its corporate structure: all 24 employees have an equity stake and they’re encouraged to share their thoughts freely with top execs. “Less experienced people can sometimes have the big idea for the company and we want to encourage that,” says Silverman. Content-wise, Stampede is focused on mainstream film and TV productions such as MTV Films’ “Pink Skies Ahead” and the Mo Willems’ HBO Max special “Don’t Let the Pigeon Do Storytime!,” both of which premiered last fall. Stampede has 150plus projects in development.