High Gun producer Skydance valued at $4bn after KKR-led funding

Skydance Media, the Hollywood manufacturing firm behind the blockbuster High Gun: Maverick, has acquired a money injection of $400mn led by KKR.

The funding, which additionally included current shareholders the Ellison household, RedBird Capital Companions and Tencent, offers Skydance a valuation of greater than $4bn. The funding will again new initiatives in sports activities and interactive leisure, and assist construct the corporate’s fledging animation division.

The capital injection comes as the general public market capitalisations of main media teams, together with Netflix, Warner Bros Discovery and Disney, have skilled sharp declines. After a couple of heady years when non-public fairness and different buyers flocked to belongings uncovered to the leisure enterprise, the temper has shifted sharply due to considerations about the price and development potential of the streaming video enterprise.

However regardless of the business gloom, Skydance has loved a robust run this 12 months, with the launch of its first animated function for Apple TV Plus and the success of High Gun: Maverick, which has raked in additional than $1.4bn on the field workplace and develop into the fifth highest-grossing movie within the US. Folks near the funding notice that the fundraising started earlier than it was clear High Gun would break field workplace information.

Based in 2010 by David Ellison, son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Skydance has expanded from movies into gaming, tv manufacturing and animation. The Ellison household stays the most important shareholder within the firm. KKR’s earlier media and leisure investments embody ByteDance, Epic Video games and Axel Springer.

“We look ahead to supporting the Skydance crew as they proceed to construct their enterprise throughout TV, movie, animation, gaming and sports activities,” stated Ted Oberwager, who leads gaming, leisure, media and sports activities for KKR’s Americas group.

Non-public fairness teams have been lively in Hollywood in recent times, with Blackstone backing Candle Media, led by former Disney executives Tom Staggs and Kevin Mayer. RedBird invested in a content material firm shaped by skilled basketball participant LeBron James and sports activities advertising govt Maverick Carter final 12 months.

Moreover High Gun, Skydance has backed a variety of different movie franchises, together with two Mission Unattainable sequels, Star Trek Into Darkness and Jack Reacher: By no means Go Again.

This summer time Apple TV Plus launched Skydance’s Luck, its first animated function movie, which was co-produced by former Pixar govt John Lasseter. Skydance has been transferring aggressively to construct the animation group, which is the most important division on the firm with 900 workers. The transfer places the impartial firm in direct competitors with animation heavyweights corresponding to Disney, DreamWorks, Illumination and Pixar.

The corporate additionally sells content material to the foremost streaming firms, together with Netflix, Amazon and Apple. Its present Grace and Frankie was the longest operating present on Netflix.