Meanwhile, in other comic companies, Skybound is raising money to make video games. One of our frequent correspondents has seen ads investing in Skybound appear on their feeds, and in fact there is a private “stock” offering for individual investors, but in a hurry, they are only open until April 3rd.
All the details can be found here, but to truly drill down you will need to read over 300 pages of investment circulation. They all show some. Skybound was not becoming one of the biggest comic/media companies in our small neck. The Walking Dead was a huge hit of $10 billion. Invincible is one of Amazon’s biggest shows, and Energon Universe sells plenty of cartoons while bolstering Skybound’s licensed chops.
So let’s take a look at this product. “Stocks” are $105 per share, at a minimum of $525. A higher investment will win a variety of perks, including a $150,000 dinner, including dinner with Robert Kirkman and other Skybound teams.
Since this is not a public offer, “stock” has been posted in quotes. This is a “stock crowdfunding investment” for a “startup.” This is not the first time Skybound has done it to the public. In 2022, they raised $17,843,500 on the Republic, a crowdfunding platform for businesses.
Now is not the best time to plow 300 pages and get facts on Skybound, but a few numbers are available from the top. According to Circular, Skybound has 165 full-time employees and two part-time employees. That’s just the number…
Skybound’s revenues are also strong. Skybound HoldingsLLC reported revenue of $96,475,000, down slightly from $100,990,000 in 2023. He made $64,386,320 in 2021 and $42,877,688 in 2020.
However, the net profit was not that good, with a loss of $6,947,000 in 2023 and a profit of $21,998,000 in 2022.
But where did this revenue come from? Sadly, the circular doesn’t seem to include sales for the Energy Space, but this breakdown is included.
The company generates revenue primarily through the sale of certain services, including physical and digital products, licensing and loyalty, and production and marketing services. According to ASC 606, the following table represents the decomposition of the company’s revenue (thousands).
Licenses and royalties include Walking Dead/Invincible Media Money, which shows why people want to publish comics as IPs.
All of this gives you an idea about the size and range of the Walking Dead phenomenon. Skybound says this is the most viewed cable show of all time and they might just be right.
The Walking Dead helped to drive revenues of over $100 billion and market capitalization, including over $1 billion for comics, games and novels at its peak in 2015.
All this, plus Invincibility and Enagon led Skybound, earning a total valuation of $625 million. Next time, call Robert Kirkman the “600 million dollar man.”
Other numbers thrown around (quot directly here).
Invincible Season 2 has been the number one revenue-generating title for Prime Video globally, and released in 104 countries at number one, Season 3 is now on sale, and Season 4 has announced the universe shared by Energon Universe -OR Remagined Transformers and Gi Joe Comics. We have expanded our most highly skilled leadership teams from companies such as Townery, Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Warner Bros., Disney Animation, CBS, and DC Comics. It is scheduled to be released in 2025 and 2026.
The main driver of future Skybound revenues seems to be video games – it’s about it soon, but the comic slides on the deck:
Comic Sales
It doubled its manga business from 2023 to 2024, generating more than $23 million in retail revenues, selling over 4.5 million books, launching the Energy Universe, Reimagined Transformers and GI Joe Shared Universe, bringing the launch of two of the most successful Hasbro comic books to date. Over $4 Million in GI Joe: The real American hero kickstarter, the most funded comic kickstarter sold in over 30 territories and 22 languages, Chickstarter has generated $3 million with its repeated revenue proven licenses and successful models of publication at Hasbro, Universal and Lego.
The comics may be great, but the main focus of the investment is video games. As can be seen in this table, it shows that 51% of the money raised will be sent to video game development.
The highlights of video games give you an idea of where the money goes.
video game
The ARR from the physical releases of House Development, International Publishing, and Arr from House Games Studio, was built by veterans from industries such as Activision Bilzzard, Electronic Arts, and Amazon Games, and $333 million from Telltale’s Walking Dead games. The 80m unit sold the Goodnight Universe 2024 Tribeca Game Award winner. Entertainment Winners Beyond Bafta 2022 Games in front of your eyes 2m Units VR Game Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners build their own in-house game based on invincibility and features two additional games under development
As for the video game business, I don’t have enough knowledge to speculate whether this will be successful, but I know it’s a dangerous business.
All this comes when it’s reported that two Skybound employees have been fired. Both game marketing managers Patrick Coyne and director of social media and strategy Guillermo Cummings reported they had been fired on LinkedIn. A Skybound spokesman said his position was removed. With 165 employees, cutting two people isn’t a belt tightening to seduce investors. They recently actually listed three jobs: assistant editor, editor brand manager and production designer.
I’m not sure if investing in Skybound is a good idea. Certainly there are some impressive numbers here, and while the Walking Dead may have passed its peak, I think it survived long enough to enter the territory of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Invincibility is still strong. Honestly, I still have around 165 employees wrapped around 165 employees.
However, according to the website’s FAQ, this type of investment is actually difficult to collect.
The common interests (“Units”) of Skybound Holdings LLC (“Company”) are not disclosed. As a result, units cannot be easily traded or sold. As an investor in a private company, you will usually receive the benefits of your investment based on the following scenarios: The company will be acquired by another company. Alternatively, the company will be publicly open to the public (they will hold their first public offer). In such cases, you can either receive a proportional distribution of distribution that normally occurs in the case of an acquisition or sell the unit in exchange. Both of these are considered long-term exits, and it takes about 5-10 years (and often long) to confirm the possibility of an exit. It can take years to build a company. There may be no returns as a result of business failure.
So, be like that guy in Citizen Bank Advertising and talk to an investment planner before making a move!
Like this:
Like loading…
