Wrapbook, a star up focused on payroll and accounting services for film and television productions, closed its latest funding round with $20 million in cash after a rise by venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners, which plans to deepen the company’s growth strategy and expand market share from Hollywood, directly challenging well-established competitors in the name of Cast & Crew and Entertainment Partners.
Co-founders Ali Javid and Cameron Woodward told The Hollywood Reporter that the funding will also include a secondary tender offer where employees will be able to sell a percentage of their equity in the firm. Utilizing this round of fundraising, Wrapbook has reached a valuation of $750 million, which is cut in half from its previous $1 billion valuation established during its $100 million Series B round in November 2021, also reflective of a changing landscape in tech investments.
Wrapbook has a user-friendly platform to onboard, pay, and track production personnel, thereby being the smoother version of the laborious payroll systems mostly had with residual payments as add-on services. If you are already constrained by the competition and significant players, one will remember Cast & Crew, founded in 1976, acquired by EQT in 2018, and Entertainment Partners, also founded in 1976, purchased by TPG Capital in 2019. They have grown through acquisition, and just last year, Cast & Crew acquired Media Services to round out their suite of services for clients.
Javid and Woodward contend that Wrapbook is actually the true third player in the Hollywood payroll and financial services game. They argue that only a company independent, free of private equity, is best positioned to run lean and stay innovative without the drag of extractive financial relationships.
Wrapbook, which launched in 2018 with a staff of three, now has offices in New York and West Hollywood but operates mostly online. The startup had raised $27 million from leading investors such as Michael Ovitz, Andreessen Horowitz, and Uncork Capital in March 2021. The production financing service was hailed last year by industry figures, such as Jeffrey Katzenberg, who said, “It’s time we bring production financial services into the 21st century.”
As it continues to expand its workforce, albeit at a planned 100 new staff members, the Wrapbook company appears to have a very bright future in making significant challenges to its competitors and repositioning payroll services in the entertainment industry.
