BlockFilm is to become the first independent and leading blockchain-based film financing platform in the space. The Canadian based production platform will be powered though a strategic partnership with TokenFunder. A groundbreaking Exemption Order by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), paved the way for this ‘tokenized’ production financing opportunity to happen.
The decision follows a rigorous process conducted by the OSC’s Launchpad team
and helps investors in content production avoid multiple-year waits before monetizing their investment, and gives producers access to wider pools of investment. It also allows BlockFilm to bring content producers – both established and emerging – together with accredited investors to finance independent media productions. The platform supports the creation of compliant financial instruments (security tokens) to fund and support project budgets.
The security tokens (covering equity, debt and/or revenue share methods of financing) represent the underlying fractionalized ownership or debt instruments that provide content producers with unprecedented and efficient access to new sources of private capital.
Gamechager for content producers
What do award-winning star producers Damon D’Oliveira, Mary Young Leckie, Ina Fichman, J. Todd Harris and Roland Joffé, among others, have in common? They are part of a growing of industry leaders who agree that BlockFilm is a gamechanger for content producers. Top-grossing Canadian producer Mary Young Leckie knows how hard creators have to work to finance their projects, and how many stakeholders are involved in the various steps to financing. For Mary, BlockFilm is a “far simpler, more democratic and less painful way to finance a film, and cannot come soon enough.”
In addition to the OSC exemption, BlockFilm is pleased to announce it has partnered exclusively with TokenGX, an Exempt Market Dealer operating its groundbreaking TokenFunder.com investing and security token issuance platform, to onboard and serve investors wishing to invest in BlockFilm content producers’ security tokens. In addition to its fully digital Know-Your-Client onboarding and investing process, TokenFunder creates and distributes the projects’ security tokens to investors’ digital asset accounts—a process which enables them to be digitally traded in the future.
Previously, film industry investors had to wait out the full lifecycle of a project’s distribution path (seven to ten years, or even longer) to monetize their investment.
“We’re excited about this partnership with TokenFunder. Backed by blockchain integrity, security and transparency, we are responding to challenges our industry has faced for decades,” says Pauline Couture, Co-CEO of BlockFilm. “The BlockFilm solution for producers and investors is unmatched today and shows true global leadership from the OSC. BlockFilm will be transformational for both content producers and investors.”
Alan Wunsche, CEO of TokenGX and TokenFunder, said: “It’s exciting to think that we will be developing an entirely new class of investment products for investors who are seeking new forms of returns in this low-interest-rate environment, all while providing wider access for the arts community to secure funding and deepen fan engagement more cost-effectively.”
A bright future
The BlockFilm/TokenFunder partnership will, in the future, allow content producers to issue rewards to their fans and investors in the form of tokens that can be collected or redeemed for film and production industry experiences and more. Eventually, members of the public will be able to offer support to content producers through direct donations. Fans, known as “champions”, will also be able to earn rewards for supporting projects through their personal social media channels.
At the time of launch, BlockFilm’s first 11 projects from Canada, Europe and the UK, aim to raise $19.1 million CAD in the next 4 to 6 months. With 50 projects in the pipeline at this moment and enormous ongoing interest, BlockFilm anticipates helping to fund more than 100 projects by the end of next year, for a projected total raise of $175 million CAD.
Accredited investors can invest in these international projects today, as long as they comply with local laws in their own jurisdictions, and will be able to resell their tokens to other accredited investors in the TokenFunder marketplace – an industry first.
“BlockFilm is conceived and designed to support an immense need among producers to access new sources of financing,” says Suzette Couture, Co-CEO and Chair of BlockFilm’s board. “Content producers in Canada and around the world will greatly benefit from our groundbreaking new platform as they connect to a global community of investors and champions that can now discover and invest in their work.”
BlockFilm is designed to showcase projects of every genre and format while promoting content with social impact causes at their heart, so that investors can connect to ‘stories that matter’ and leverage their investing power as a way of engaging in causes they want to support. Those projects will ignite the passions of fans and communities on key topics such as: the environment and sustainability; human rights; Indigenous Peoples; LGBTQIA2S+ people; People of Colour; social and political issues; and women
and gender issues.
