From Day 1, Frederator’s been on the lookout for ways to help wonderful creators more and find the fans who love their work. It’s in that spirit that I wanted to tell you about our latest level up.
Frederator is very honored to have joined a merger with Rainmaker Entertainment in Vancouver and Ezrin Hirsh Entertainment in Toronto to form Wow! Unlimited. Chairman Michael Hirsh and his team of Vice Chair Bob Ezrin and COO Neil Chakravarti, and the Rainmaker team of Craig Graham, Michael Hefferon, Bryant Pike, Kim Dent Wilder, and all the Frederators (Brian Gucciardo, Eric Homan, Kevin Kolde, Carrie Miller, Nate Olson, Fred Pustay, Jeremy Rosen) are really excited to be building a new global media company that’s focusing on animation and kids.
There will be a lot of details forthcoming, but suffice it to say that Frederator will continue it’s mission from Burbank and New York to find the world’s greatest talent, making great films, and building channels for fans to see their films. Adding in Rainmaker’s world class crew and Michael’s legendary leadership, I think this kind of joint can help us find more and more ways for our collaborators to create the characters of their dreams.
In the meantime, here’s the story about this new partnership in last night’s Hollywood Reporter. As always, if you’ve got any thoughts, lemme know.
– Fred
…..
The Hollywood Reporter 3:58 PM PDT 10/25/2016 by Etan Vlessing
American, Canadian Animation Digital Studios Merge to Create Wow! Unlimited
Fred Seibert’s Frederator Networks has been acquired by ‘Escape From Planet Earth’ studio Rainmaker Entertainment to create a kids and animation powerhouse.
Media veteran Fred Seibert’s Frederator Networks just got more animated.
The New York-based digital animation studio, which has produced series for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, has been acquired by Canadian animation studio Rainmaker Entertainment to create WOW! Unlimited Media. The share purchase deal will see Frederator founder Seibert become chief creative officer and the largest shareholder of WOW!, with fellow animation veteran Michael Hirsh, founder of Nelvana and Cookie Jar Entertainment, taking the helm as chairman and CEO.
The deal aims at combining Frederator’s digital animation networks, including the Channel Frederator multichannel network on YouTube, with Rainmaker’s Vancouver-based animation studio to create and distribute kids and animation content across all media platforms.
Rainmaker also is acquiring kids and youth content producer Ezrin Hirsh Entertainment, founded by Hirsh and Bob Ezrin, the veteran music producer (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed), who becomes vice-chairman. WOW! will be capitalized in part by an underwritten private placement with proceeds of around $11 million.
“Frederator’s goal of pursuing world-class talent will be increased exponentially by creating WOW! Unlimited with Michael Hirsh and his team, and Rainmaker Entertainment,” Seibert said Tuesday in a statement.
“Through partnerships with great media and telecom companies around the world, we will build the definitive next generation global kids and youth company,” Hirsh said in his own statement.