Soccer Manager – the UK-based online soccer management game – has secured a further £3m to support its continued growth in a funding round led by its existing investor Mercia.  The latest investment, which comes from Mercia’s own funds, the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and the Government’s Future Fund, will allow it to grow its user base in the Middle East and Far East through local language translations, further develop its SM 2022 game which is due to launch this autumn, and relaunch its original multi-player game, SM World, by creating new apps and adding new features.

GP Bullhound acted as exclusive financial advisor to Byte, a marketing technology agency focused on fast-growing digital platform brands, on its sale to Dept, an international digital agency for creativity, technology and data, backed by The Carlyle Group.

BGF has invested $11 million in Genflow, a London & LA based Influencer brand building agency with a unique ecommerce and mobile tech platform, to support its global expansion plans.

BGF, has invested £6 million in world-renowned global animation studio, Snipple, to support its ambitious growth plans to develop its own IP and content. BGF will take a minority share in Snipple.  Under the leadership of London based CEO Kaine Pate, Snipple Animation has worked consistently with some of the biggest broadcast networks globally, including Netflix, Warner Bros, Disney, Dreamworks and Nickelodeon.  Its portfolio of animation work boasts a variety of family favourites, such as Where’s Waldo, Dora And Friends, Into the City, Animaniacs, Green Eggs and Ham, Ducktales, Be Cool Scooby Doo and Phineas and Ferb, amongst others.

Great Point, the media investment business run by Jim Reeve and Robert Halmi, has entered into an agreement with the Welsh Government to lease and manage the Seren Stiwdios complex in Cardiff, Wales. 

Great Point will manage the studio for 10 years, with an option to acquire and expand the large studio complex. The deal closely follows Great Point’s recent announcements of the building of Lionsgate Studios in Yonkers, NY, as well as a second studio complex in Buffalo, New York. This third studio signals Great Point’s commitment to expanding its efforts to build and manage state-of-the-art production facilities in key production cities, where pressure on existing studio space is ever-increasing.

The Calculus Creative Content EIS Fund has invested in Home Team, a production company founded by Dominic Buchanan and Bennett McGhee. HOME TEAM will operate in the international film & television space, with a focus on the development and production of high-end, wholly inclusive feature films and television series. 

Led by producers Dominic Buchanan (BAFTA, Royal Television Society and Peabody Award-winning The End of The F***ing World) and Bennett McGhee (Berlin film Festival’s 2020 FRIPRESCI winner, Mogul Mowgli), Home Team’s intention is to identify and develop under-represented creatives and nurture exciting voices- primarily, but not restricted to, filmmakers of colour and women filmmakers of all ethnicities, through interactive as well as traditional film and TV platforms. 

Enigma Holdings has invested £500,000 seed funding in Crowd Network, a new audio-on-demand network in Manchester. Comedian and entrepreneur John Bishop has invested alongside Enigma and will be launching a podcast with Crowd in September. Enigma is an investment company focused in the areas of Health, Wellbeing, Sport, Learning, Community Programs and Social Housing. It was seed funded through a Family Investment Company and reinvests returns into growth capital and new projects 

A year after the worldwide sales success of the Channel 5 film ‘Agatha and the Truth of Murder’, the North Yorkshire-based husband and wife team behind it – Emily and Tom Dalton – have received backing from the UK’s leading media focussed investment group, Great Point Media, to start a regional production company. Great Point Ventures’ EIS investment in Factual Fiction is its second to be announced this year and eighth overall, consolidating a successful first 18 months for the fund.

The UK Creative Content EIS Fund has invested in Maze Theory, a digital entertainment studio focusing on the creation and development of immersive entertainment experiences across multiple platforms, including Virtual Reality (VR), PC, Console and Mobile. 

Maze Theory established its reputation with the launch of its first VR game - Doctor Who ‘The Edge of Time’, which launched in November 2019 for PlayStation (PSVR) and Oculus Rift headsets, before also launching on Oculus Quest headsets in January 2020. VR gaming has become more accessible given the advances in technology, alongside the availability of low, medium and high-end devices. The market is scaling rapidly, with significant growth experienced in both hardware and software. 

Great Point, the UK’s leading independent media investment firm, has invested in Camden Productions, an independent TV and film production company whose team has a track record of producing multi-award-winning, creatively acclaimed and commercially successful scripted comedy and comedy-drama. 

Octopus Ventures, part of Octopus Group and one of the largest VCs in Europe, has exited its investment in FilmTech start-up We Got POP.   FilmTech startup We Got POP has been acquired by Entertainment Partners, the end-to-end provider of production and workforce management solutions to the entertainment industry. Entertainment Partners is headquartered in LA and operates across the US and Canada. It is owned by TPG Capital, the private equity platform of global alternative asset firm TPG. 

Great Point Media, the London-based media and investment group, has appointed Jamie Lowe as Head of Institutional Distribution. Lowe will oversee the structuring and launch of Great Point’s global institutional project finance fund which will look to invest in large-scale media projects and finance film and television programming globally. Lowe joined Great Point from The Ingenious Group where he was a board director and Head of Institutional distribution.