Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
245 N Beverly Dr, Beverly Hills, CA, 90210, United States
Overview
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is an entertainment company focused on the production and global distribution of film and television content across all platforms. The company owns one of the world’s deepest libraries of premium film and television content. In addition, MGM has investments in domestic and international television channels. MGM and its legendary roaring lion logo was formed in April 1924, by theater magnate Marcus Loew, who orchestrated the merger of Metro Pictures Corp., Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Productions. With visionary Louis B. Mayer and production genius Irving Thalberg at the helm, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was a powerhouse of prolific artistry and filmmaking expertise that the studio famously said attracted "more stars than are in the heavens." During a golden three decades from 1924 to 1954, the Culver City-based studio dominated the movie business, creating a Best Picture nominee every year for two straight decades. One of the more memorable years at the Academy Awards® was in 1939 when MGM's Gone With the Wind and MGM's The Wizard of Oz were both nominated for Best Picture. Gone With the Wind took home Best Picture that year, along with 8 other Oscars. The Wizard of Oz secured two Oscars. Hattie McDaniel Won for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Oscar®. United Artists was established on July 15, 1919, by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith and was best known as "the company built by the stars." The budding company quickly left an indelible mark on Hollywood, revolutionizing the motion-picture business by promising creative freedom to actors and filmmakers, while offering the filmmakers a share of the film's profits. UA's Midnight Cowboy, released in 1969 starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, was the first X-Rated film to be nominated and win an Academy Award®. It won 3 Oscars®, including Best Picture. It was changed to an R-rating in 1971. United Artists later joined the MGM family in 1981, and thrived as a member of the "lion's pride." MGM boasts more than 175 Academy Awards® in its vast library. Among those are 14 Best Pictures. These films include; Rebecca (1940), Hamlet (1948), Marty (1955), The Apartment (1960), West Side Story (1961), Tom Jones (1963), In the Heat of the Night (1967), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Rocky (1976), Annie Hall (1977), Platoon (1986), Rain Man (1988), Dances With Wolves (1990), The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
- Total investments
- 2
- Lead investments
- 0
- Investments · 12mo
- 0
- Active investors
- 8
Sector focus
- Film Distribution
- Film Production
- Media and Entertainment
- TV Production
Investment portfolio
- Dreamscape Immersive
Participated · Series A · Feb 2017
Dreamscape delivers location-based VR “adventures” across four sites worldwide using proprietary full-body tracking and cinematic storytelling to create untethered, participatory experiences. Its ADEPT (Avatar Driven Educational and Practical Training) platform and rendering/tracking tech aim to reproduce real-world feel for both entertainment and training. Dreamscape has partnered with Arizona State University on Dreamscape Learn to bring avatar-based AR/VR to on-campus and online courses, including an immersive biology curriculum with a 16x16-foot pod planned for 2021. The company’s founders include former DreamWorks Motion Pictures head Walter Parkes and Disney Imagineering alum Bruce Vaughn. Dreamscape’s investor base includes entertainment names such as WarnerMedia, Viacom, Disney, AMC, IMAX, Steven Spielberg, and Hans Zimmer. Verizon Ventures has taken an equity stake and will collaborate on 5G- and mobile edge compute–powered learning and training applications; financial terms were not disclosed. Dreamscape Immersive is a Los Angeles-based location-based virtual reality company that offers untethered VR experiences using body-mapping technology created by Swiss research institute Artanim. Founded in January 2017 by co-chairmen Walter Parkes and Kevin Wall alongside CEO Bruce Vaughn and COO Aaron Grosky, the company builds cinematic, interactive worlds for participants to enter and explore. Its flagship location was slated to open to the public at Westfield Century City Mall in Los Angeles in 2018. Dreamscape has a strategic partnership with AMC Entertainment, with AMC committed to open and operate up to six Dreamscape VR centers within AMC theatres and at standalone locations in North America and the U.K. The company intends to use new funding to scale operations, build a marquee slate of content, and further global expansion into new territories. Financially, Dreamscape closed a $30M Series B financing to support those plans. Dreamscape Immersive is a Los Angeles-based developer of immersive virtual reality entertainment experiences. It builds location-based VR entertainment offerings intended for public entertainment centers. The company said it plans to open a flagship "VR Multiplex" at the Westfield Century City Mall in fall of this year. Dreamscape raised a Series A financing; the company did not publicly disclose the round size, though a regulatory filing indicates around $11.36M. The Series A was led by Bold Capital Partners and included Warner Bros., 21st Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), IMAX Corporation, Westfield Corporation, and Steven Spielberg. Founders and co-chairmen are Walter Parkes and Kevin Wall, and Bruce Vaughn, formerly of Disney Imagineering, was named CEO.
- Interlude
Participated · Equity · Dec 2015
Interlude develops a patented interactive video platform that lets viewers make real-time choices that affect dialogue and plot, creating game-like, adaptive live-action experiences. Its technology enables nearly infinite variations of a single piece of content and is distributed via the mobile web, apps, and the web. The company has produced music-video and branded-content experiences and has been used by third-party producers, with projects involving artists and partners such as Carly Rae Jepsen, Aloe Blacc, Coldplay, Coca‑Cola, MTV, the BBC and Morgan Spurlock. Interlude reports its content achieves on average 10 times better engagement, retention, and sharing versus traditional Internet video. The company plans to use new funds to create serialized video across drama, comedy, news, sports, music and pop culture, grow its creator ecosystem, and advance its core technology. Interlude is based in New York and maintains additional offices in Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. Interlude Ltd. provides an online tool to create and personalize interactive video experiences. The platform also offers analytics to understand how users interact with those interactive objects. The company was founded in 2009 by CEO Yoni Bloch, VP product Tal Zubalsky and COO Barak Feldman. Interlude is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and New York City. In May 2013 the company raised $15M in funding. The product focus remains on interactive video creation, personalization and user interaction analytics.