(Bloomberg) — Skydance, the Hollywood studio run by David Ellison, was valued at more than $4 billion after raising $400 million in a strategic investment round led by KKR & Co.
(Bloomberg) — Skydance, the Hollywood studio run by David Ellison, was valued at more than $4 billion after raising $400 million in a strategic investment round led by KKR & Co.
The valuation makes Skydance, founded in 2010, one of the larger independent studios in Hollywood.
The money will be used to further expand its work in sports, interactive entertainment and animation, the company said Thursday.
“We’re incredibly excited to have a partner like KKR,” Ellison said in an interview.
“The capital’s going to be used to grow and scale our different business, including across interactive and animation.”
The Ellison family, which derives most of its fortune from David’s billionaire father, Oracle Corp.
founder Larry Ellison, also invested in the round and remains the company’s largest shareholder. Existing investors RedBird Capital Partners and Tencent Holdings Ltd. participated too, the company said.
Skydance has produced a string of successful projects including Top Gun: Maverick, the Tom Cruise fighter-jet film that generated more than $1 billion in global ticket sales this year.
It was also behind The Adam Project, The Old Guard and 6 Underground for Netflix Inc., with each appearing on the streaming platform’s list of top-10 most-watched films.
The company’s interactive division has made popular video games including The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, which was released in 2020, and Archangel, a virtual-reality game released in 2017.
The deal expands KKR’s media-sector presence, which has included funding companies such as TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd, publisher Axel Springer SE and Epic Games Inc.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised Skydance on the deal, while Moelis & Co. served as an adviser to KKR.
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