Details Emerge About Jeffrey Katzenberg's New-Media Venture

By Erich Schwartzel 

Longtime Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg has raised nearly $600 million to invest in digital and technology ventures, according to a regulatory filing.

The filing Thursday morning offers new details on the latest career move for Mr. Katzenberg, who served as chief executive at DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. before it was sold last year to Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion.

His new firm, called WndrCo LLC, has raised $591.5 million and is on the hunt for investments in digital and technology companies.

WndrCo draws inspiration from Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp., a publicly traded company whose investments and holdings include digital brands About.com and CollegeHumor and dating services Match.com and Tinder.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Mr. Katzenberg's first funding round didn't list the company's investors or any current investments. The minimum outside investment is $25 million.

Mr. Katzenberg cashed out nearly $400 million in company stock following the DreamWorks Animation sale, but speculation has swirled since then on what he would do next. Notably, the 66-year-old executive isn't venturing back into traditional moviemaking, as other recent out-of-work studio chiefs have opted to do.

WndrCo enters the scene as traditional content creators like Hollywood studios must retain relevance in a marketplace that also includes tech-oriented competitors like Apple Inc. and Netflix Inc.

Mr. Katzenberg, who before co-founding DreamWorks worked at Walt Disney Co. for many years, is joined at WndrCo by two co-founders, Ann Daly and Sujay Jaswa. Ms. Daly was a longtime lieutenant of Mr. Katzenberg's at DreamWorks Animation, and stepped down as president of the company when it was sold. Mr. Jaswa worked as a principal at New Enterprise Associates, a venture-capital firm, and as chief financial officer at Dropbox Inc.

Mr. Katzenberg hasn't been coy about his interest in looking beyond movies, saying in 2014 that movies were "not a growth business."

At DreamWorks Animation, he took an interest in digital ventures and purchased AwesomenessTV, a multichannel network that specialized in mobile content, for an initial $33 million in 2013. When Verizon Communications Inc. bought a 24.5% stake in AwesomenessTV last April, it valued the network at $650 million.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 26, 2017 11:32 ET (16:32 GMT)

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