Atlanta-Based Southbox Entertainment Raising $80 Million Fund For Film & TV Production
EXCLUSIVE: Jon Gosier’s Southbox Entertainment has secured a $25 million partnership with sister company FilmHedge and is raising another $55 million from private investors — for $80 million in fresh funds to greenlight film and TV projects.
The company has also expanded its management team with Chandler Heinz Laun, formerly of ICM, coming on as chief of staff, and financial services veteran Jonathan Hecht as managing partner. Both are now also partners at parent company, Southbox Capital.
The funds are mostly aimed at independent films with budgets of $5 million to $35 million. “The biggest check we can write is $20 million,” Gosier said, for projects anywhere in the world. But the Georgia-native is proud the funds are coming from the Peach State where generous tax incentives have led to a boom in production.
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“Everyone talks about the films that shoot in Georgia. But where does that money come from? Almost always from LA and New York, London — somewhere else. We are one of the few groups capable, with our own money, of green-lighting films from Georgia,” he tells Deadline.
Gosier started out working with one of them, Tyler Perry, as a music supervisor, working on Perry’s first film, The Diary Of A Mad Black Woman (2005), and was one of the first employees of Tyler Perry Studios. He left for a career in tech, co-founding advertising platform Audigent, eventually taking a buyout.
He launched Southbox Capital in 2017 to pursue investments and launch companies, including FilmHedge, which provides senior debt financing to late-stage productions. It has raised over $100 million, Gosier said, for films “either already in production or headed into production, that already have their cast, already have deals with streamers and distributors. They’re pretty far along.”
Southbox Entertainment, a separate entity and until now mostly a production company, will be going in at an earlier stage. “Of the deals that we were turning away at FilmHedge, some had most, but not all, of the criteria that we were looking for. We decided to create an $80 million fund, which we’re in the process of raising now, that comes in a little bit earlier. It’s the first money. We can come in with capital that helps producers get their talent attached, that helps with the development they need to happen before production. It just sort of gives us a head start in terms of the capital raise. And it also gives the other investors who are coming in some comfort.”
FilmHedge also provides line-of-credit partnerships with production companies, including a $25-million first-look financing partnership with Riveting Entertainment Group announced last month in Cannes. “There will be more to come,” Gosier said.
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