There’s a new player in town. Madrid-based Mainbridge Capital Ventures (MCV) has launched an entertainment and media division to which it will initially allocate up to $35 million towards investments in IP and audiovisual content creation.
MCV VP Ignacio de Medina has been appointed to spearhead the studio’s investment strategy as senior advisor.
The new Entertainment & Media division complements MCV’s branches in tech and renewable energy. MCV has already raised 45% of its $120 million target investment fund, and has invested in a number of companies and infrastructure projects. The company is targeting another 10% in additional capital commitments and is raising the second round of capital, with investors mainly from the U.K., Spain, Europe and Latin America but also from other regions such as the United Arab Emirates and the U.S.
Mainbridge Entertainment & Media will manage the label Mainbridge Int’l Studios, which already has some projects in the pipeline. MVC is “defining the total capital allocated to content, which will increase gradually, according to the demands of profitability and risk control of its current investors,” it announced.
“We’ll be hiring project analysts, script doctors and writers to form an in-house team,” said De Medina who stresses that part of the total fund will be spent on infrastructure, including sound stages and studios.
“We’ll be seeking projects in any language but will favor those that are primarily in English or bi-lingual, to improve their chances of international distribution,” said De Medina, who pointed out that they were investors, not producers.
“English language content has a higher tariff than equivalent non-English language content,” said Maria Rua Aguete, Senior Director, Media and Entertainment at London-based analysis firm, Omdia. “There are many companies who are willing to invest in production and also buy finished content but it’s a highly competitive market that demands higher production quality to compete, with associated higher costs,” she added. “U.S. production costs tend to be the highest, with the U.K., Canada and Australia producing at a lower cost. As such, non-U.S. companies who have managed to sell into the U.S. both scripted and unscripted content tend to have been very profitable over the last decade,” Aguete pointed out.
Among Mainbridge’s recent investments in content is Malaga and Canary Islands-based video game startup Mindiff, creator of the video game “Khosmium,” a direct competitor of “League of Legends” or “War of Warcraft”; the crypto-currency $KHOS; Fintech platform Acorns; FuboTV, an SVOD platform for the U.S., Canada and Spain and ATG, a private Arab TV production group.
Khosmium is the first of its kind to enter the Play to Earn (P2E) field that gives players the opportunity to earn money through the blockchain and technologies such as NFTs.
Mainbridge invested in the game’s development phase with more than €5 million, said Mindiff founder Alberto Yarte who added that another round of financing was also carried out with blockchain technology through the game’s cryptocurrency and NFTs.
“De Medina and Mainbridge are part of the company’s shareholders and one of the first investors and promoters of the project in all its phases,” noted Yarte.
Developed by Mindiff Technology for multiple years, Khosmium, based on a fantasy universe, combines three genres: RPG (Role Playing Games), RTS (Real Time Strategy) and MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena).
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