Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Impact, an online professional network for film and TV crews, has closed $15 million in series B funding.
Impact, headed by Tyler Mitchel, CEO, will expand its product line and services with Shasta Ventures’ new funding.
The new funding will be used to add talent to the existing product and engineering teams that will enhance the company’s tools that facilitate collaboration among productions and crews. This seamless communication will help to make the industry more connected with talent and promote inclusion.
Shasta Ventures was the lead investor, with participation from Benchmark, Riviera Partners and Snap chairman Michael Lynton. Eric Fellner was co-chairman of Working Title Films. “Billions”Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Anthony Wood are the creators of Roku. As a result of the round, Jason Pressman, Shasta Ventures’ managing director, will join the company’s board.
“We launched Impact to empower the people who bring stories to life,”Grazer spoke out about the funding. “We want crew to have the ability to access more opportunities and streamline how productions connect and collaborate.”
“There’ve been so many incredible technological advances over the years in digital effects, cameras, editing, and streaming, but the actual mounting and producing of shows hasn’t evolved and can’t keep up with the growing demand,”Howard added. “We hope that Impact will make the hard-working crews’ jobs a little easier, and allow productions to run a bit smoother and maybe even wrap days earlier.”
Impact, which has 25,000 active users and has helped 60 productions source crew for 130 roles, went public in the Atlanta market in September and has raised over $21 million in total funding.
“Entertainment is a network-driven industry that does not have an online network,”Mitchell stated. “With production spending continuing to break global records and $4.6B being invested to build new studios and hundreds of state of the art sound stages around the world, now is the time for us to accelerate our development of network-driven features that will connect the industry. Our network will provide more opportunities for crew, real-time visibility into the available workforce and facilities for studios and producers, and tools designed to save people the most valuable commodity in the industry — time.”