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Lumina, a movie studio and enterprise capital group based by producer and entrepreneur Thomas Benski, has raised tens of hundreds of thousands in money from rich traders corresponding to Tetra Pak inheritor Magnus Rausing and the Dorfman household.
Lumina is growing a brand new leisure mannequin designed to bypass main studios and put actors answerable for their very own mental property. The enterprise will put money into manufacturing corporations fronted and co-owned by international stars corresponding to French actor Omar Sy, alongside a movie financing fund and manufacturing arm.
A separate enterprise capital fund will purchase mental property within the movie sector and finance productions.
The primary enterprise Lumina is backing is Carrousel Studios, Sy’s new manufacturing home co-owned with director Louis Leterrier. The actor advised the Monetary Instances that Lumina provided “artists like us the sources and experience to exit and realise our ambitions at a time when expertise is simply too usually not on the desk to learn from a initiatives’ long-term success”.
A separate movie manufacturing enterprise, referred to as Magna Studios, led by Marisa Clifford and Davud Karbassioun, will deal with reveals corresponding to scripted drama and documentaries. Lumina has closed a deal to make reveals with Yann Demange, who directed the hit present Prime Boy.
One other arm will deal with youngsters’ leisure, together with investing in and growing Strike, a bunch that produces the soccer present Jamie Johnson. A separate consumer-focused enterprise investments fund has additionally been raised, with preliminary investments in luxurious model Métier and tech group DAACI.
Benski beforehand based Pulse, a TV and movie studio that had revenues of greater than $150mn by the point he left in 2021, with initiatives together with Gangs of London, Beastie Boys Story and The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Benski mentioned that Lumina wished to disrupt the normal Hollywood mannequin with a shift from “service to possession . . . for expertise to go from incomes charges to really proudly owning their work”.
He added that the brand new enterprise was designed to “bypass” the normal studio mannequin, which comes with heavy prices and infrastructure, outsourcing a lot of the work and as an alternative “placing capital, operations and strategic help round expertise to assist them personal their work creatively and financially”.
The varied companies would work collectively the place they may, he mentioned, “[look] at all the pieces we do some bit extra like a franchise or model, quite than simply servicing the wants of broadcasters”.
The primary spherical of funding contains Magnus Rausing’s BFK, Charles Dorfman’s Dorfman Media Holdings and SVS Holdings, amongst traders.
Lumina goals to be self-financing by means of its initiatives — utilizing the cash raised as an M&A struggle chest — with a projected $55mn in income within the first yr, rising to $100mn within the second yr.
“The present media panorama is in flux, and we imagine that is the perfect time to construct future-facing corporations,” mentioned Benski. “Our thesis is that there’s a large alternative to decouple the IP creation course of by constructing studios and manufacturing corporations round main expertise.”
He mentioned the group was already planning to provide three to 4 TV reveals, and 5 motion pictures subsequent yr with companions together with Netflix and the BBC.
Magnus Rausing, whose household personal the Tetra Pak empire and who’s a enterprise capital investor by means of funding firm Mahr Initiatives, mentioned Lumina would pioneer “a brand new strategy that each helps expertise to create and personal precious IP whereas driving innovation throughout its corporations — creatively, strategically and technologically”.
Rausing mentioned: “I used to be searching for a car to construct a media and leisure footprint and Lumina is totally the fitting platform given its ingenious mannequin.”
Charles Dorfman, chief government of Dorfman Media Holdings, mentioned he could be a strategic companion “searching for so as to add worth past our funding”.
Benski mentioned that there have been benefits to being based mostly in Europe quite than the US — corresponding to cheaper manufacturing prices, native subsidies and tax breaks.
There could be additional M&A, he added. “We’re founder-friendly, we’ve got good capital, we’ve got a very good document. I feel we develop into fairly a sexy proposition for the correct of corporations.”
