Brash Entertainment LLC announced on June 4th 2007 that they raised $400 million from investors including ABRY Partners LLC, New York Life Capital Partners, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and PPM America. Brash is in the videogame industry, competing against Electronic Arts Inc. Activision Inc and others.
For many years, companies in the gaming industry developed their own video games, evolving quickly, as well as adapted concepts from Hollywood. They achieved mixed results. Some succeeded Spider-Man 2 from Activision, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings from EA,. But some others misfired, from E.T. the Extra terrestrial (Atari )to “Spiderman returns” from EA..
$400 million is a whopping sum. How can a start-up create that much value at such early stage of its development?
1 – An innovative focus. Brash will leverage existing brands to develop new games.Their concept is to develop video games exclusively based on entertainment franchises and Hollywood : films, TV shows and serries, movie characters, and more. They will not develop their own games.
2 – The founding team is made of veterans of both industries (movies and games). The team includes Thomas Tull former chairman of Legendary Picutres, Davis, Nicholas Longano former founders of Massive inc.
3 – Improved execution on this concept. They will work as early as possible in the movie process, rather than come in once the movie is completed. Hence they will deliver high quality interactive games.
4 – They have already signed deals with 5 major Hollywood studios and music, licensed up to 40 films and have 12 games under development.
5 – They believe it is still a high growth industry, which will take-off after 3 years in the range of $ 6 billion annual software sales figures in 2004, 2005 and 2006 (source : NPD Group)
Brash Full PR release here.