Hilco is pleased to inform that the Marketing Campaign for the sale of the business and assets of Project Watch has now been extended. Project Watch is an innovative multifaceted media company utilising disruptive technology to deliver entertainment, language learning and cultural content. The business offers an excellent opportunity either as a standalone company, with scope to scale existing operations, or as a bolt on opportunity to an established organisation.
Project Watch has just celebrated 10-years of being incorporated as a Company and is well-established in the industry with strong market presence and goodwill across the US, UK and Southeast Asia. Q2-2023 saw the Company earning its highest revenues in its history, with the team having now identified a profitable, scalable strategy which will be shared with the Buyer. Many of the new films released now achieve over 80% profit margin in just a few months, an impressive and remarkable level for the industry.
Project Watch is a Video-On-Demand (“VOD”) streaming platform and aggregation business offering international and independent films, shorts and documentaries from around the world often overlooked by the traditional film distribution system and not widely accessible outside their home country.
The Key Strengths & Assets of the Company include the following:
Over its trading period the Company has developed a substantial amount of proprietary technologies to assist with film discovery, tagging, film data, SEO marketing as well as community and user engagement
The Company’s strong SEO rankings and proprietary technologies – googling key search terms such as “films online”, “watch Japanese films” and “French films online” will show the Company consistently achieving top-ranking results
The platform receives over 500,000 visitors a month and has over 370,000 registered members from 190 countries and now offers a catalogue of over 2,000 films online
The company also has a channel on Amazon Prime in the US offering foreign language short films as a standalone subscription-based film branded service
The business also operates a very strong B2B content aggregation & syndication arm and supplies films to other third-party companies, such as global online platforms and international telcos, and now has over 300 signed distribution agreements with distributors, sales agents and film producers in place
Between January 2020 – December 2021, the Company was a recipient of the Creative Europe Media grant programme, a major grant initiative of the EU. The grant project enabled the Company to expand into edtech and to develop base edutainment technologies which were used as part of an extensive pilot programme across 12 countries
Consequently, the Company has won a number of major awards and has been selected for some of the world’s best accelerator programmes including TechStars and 500 Global as a result of its innovative edutainment proposition
The Company has particularly strong ties with the UK, France and Southeast Asia, as a result of an international multi-lingual team who helped to build the company and continues to operate across these three regions
Project Watch is likely to be an attractive acquisition target for the following types of Companies:
Companies looking to acquire over 370,000 new users
Companies looking to leverage the Community’s community and online presence across the Company’s YouTube channels and social media
Companies looking to leverage the Company’s strong SEO rankings
Companies looking to acquire an extensive and diverse international film catalogue, with many of the films having syndication & aggregation rights
Companies looking to build on the Company’s strong industry reputation and good will, as a result of having won numerous awards and selected to headline or speak at various major film festivals (e.g. Cannes, Venice, Berlinale) and tech conferences (e.g. MTH Conference in Berlin)
Companies looking to build on and learn from the Company’s extensive pilot findings and early traction from its early stage edtech technologies developed as a result of winning a major grant
Business Assets
Available assets include:
Intellectual Property Assets – the established brand name, trademarks, designs, copyright in the website content, domain name, Company published literature and proprietary technology
Extensive International Film Catalogue – strong network of international content owners, which can be scaled further and rapidly
Customer, Partner & Supplier Relationships – the extensive member database, and distributor contracts and relationships as well as partners
Organisational Knowledge – an established team with a detailed understanding of the industry and market
Goodwill – the valuable goodwill attaching to the business, which includes industry reputation, awards and contacts
Sale Process and Further Information
On receipt of a signed non-disclosure agreement (NDA) access will be provided to a virtual data room housing additional information. To access the NDA please click the link, sign and return via email to apercival@hilcoglobal.eu
If you do not have access to a printer or scanner to sign the NDA, please get in touch and we will send you a digital copy to sign.
