FilmChain
Setting the Scene
Profits from a movie don’t always end up in the right pockets. 🤔
Here’s the payment flow:
Cinemas and streaming platforms claim 40-50% of revenue.
Distributors earn a commission for marketing the film.
Sales agents make a cut for pitching to festivals and distributors.
Private investors take their share.
Finally, producers pay actors, directors, screenwriters, and the crew with the rest of the funds.
This process often occurs manually, which causes payment delays, underreporting, and mismatched revenue.
This week’s company provides a platform that centralizes payment and royalty distributions for films and TV shows.
In a Sentence
FilmChain is a payments platform that collects, distributes, and analyzes profits for films and TV shows.
Platform: Leverages blockchain technology to ensure transactions are automated, traceable, and visible to stakeholders.
Collects, distributes, and analyzes: Records transactions, distributes funds, manages royalties, displays ownership, illustrates financial data, and predicts film performance.
Films and TV shows: Customers range from indie filmmakers and producers to enterprise-level movie studios and streaming platforms.
Bulleted Version:
- FilmChain is like an advanced Google Sheet for film finances, auto-updating in real-time and recording transactions for every stakeholder. 👀
The Basics
- Headquarters: London
- Employee Count: 9
- Investors:
RocaX, Hearst Lab, SFC Capital, Christoph Lange, Taavi Tamkivi, Christian Wittmer, Simona Popa
- Funding amount: £1.7m & £377k in grants
- Business model: Onboarding fees and transaction fees
- Early traction: 100 independent titles, £1M+ in assets managed over the last 4 months, 2 enterprise pilots with 750+ titles
Due Diligence
WHAT WE LIKE
🎥 The cinema scene: Box office revenue is expected to reach $30b this year, yet filmmakers and studios face a complicated payment process with frequent delays, a lack of transparency, and underpayment.
⚙️ Film flywheel: By engaging various stakeholders across the payment process, FilmChain will build key relationships, drive repeat usage, and acquire new customers.
👀 Sequel end markets: FilmChain has the potential to serve the music, gaming, and other industries to improve the payment flow and royalty management.
POTENTIAL RISKS
👥 The onboarding process: Producers must convince the entire chain of stakeholders to join and accept payments on the platform, which may lead to longer sales cycles.
😳 Customized deals: FilmChain negotiates each deal with the customer, which takes time, may hinder scalability, and causes difficulty in standardizing pricing structures.
✍️ Writers’ strike: Customers may be reluctant to adopt a new platform due to the strained relationships and industry slowdown caused by the writers’ strike.
Founder Profile
Maria Tanjala: Previously worked as a film and content producer.
Irina Albita: Member of EU Commission Blockchain, previously started a university accelerator, and founded two startups.
Comps
Breaker: Raised through equity crowdfunding.
FilmTrack: Acquired by City National Bank.
Rightsline: Acquired by Klass Capital.
Cinelytic: Backed by T&B Media Global.
Why FilmChain
With an automated payment platform that builds transparency for all stakeholders across a wide end market, we applaud FilmChain’s innovative payments solution. 🎬