Details Emerge About Jeffrey Katzenberg's New-Media Venture
January 26 2017 - 11:47AM
Dow Jones News
By Erich Schwartzel
Longtime Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg has raised
nearly $600 million to invest in digital and technology ventures,
according to a regulatory filing.
The filing Thursday morning offers new details on the latest
career move for Mr. Katzenberg, who served as chief executive at
DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. before it was sold last year to
Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion.
His new firm, called WndrCo LLC, has raised $591.5 million and
is on the hunt for investments in digital and technology
companies.
WndrCo draws inspiration from Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive
Corp., a publicly traded company whose investments and holdings
include digital brands About.com and CollegeHumor and dating
services Match.com and Tinder.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Mr.
Katzenberg's first funding round didn't list the company's
investors or any current investments. The minimum outside
investment is $25 million.
Mr. Katzenberg cashed out nearly $400 million in company stock
following the DreamWorks Animation sale, but speculation has
swirled since then on what he would do next. Notably, the
66-year-old executive isn't venturing back into traditional
moviemaking, as other recent out-of-work studio chiefs have opted
to do.
WndrCo enters the scene as traditional content creators like
Hollywood studios must retain relevance in a marketplace that also
includes tech-oriented competitors like Apple Inc. and Netflix
Inc.
Mr. Katzenberg, who before co-founding DreamWorks worked at Walt
Disney Co. for many years, is joined at WndrCo by two co-founders,
Ann Daly and Sujay Jaswa. Ms. Daly was a longtime lieutenant of Mr.
Katzenberg's at DreamWorks Animation, and stepped down as president
of the company when it was sold. Mr. Jaswa worked as a principal at
New Enterprise Associates, a venture-capital firm, and as chief
financial officer at Dropbox Inc.
Mr. Katzenberg hasn't been coy about his interest in looking
beyond movies, saying in 2014 that movies were "not a growth
business."
At DreamWorks Animation, he took an interest in digital ventures
and purchased AwesomenessTV, a multichannel network that
specialized in mobile content, for an initial $33 million in 2013.
When Verizon Communications Inc. bought a 24.5% stake in
AwesomenessTV last April, it valued the network at $650
million.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 26, 2017 11:32 ET (16:32 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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