EXCLUSIVE: Komixx Entertainment raising $100M for Random House Children’s Books

From Deadline|London editor Tim Adler: Back in June, Random House Children’s Books (RHCB) and Komixx Entertainment agreed to create a new company, Random House Children’s Screen Entertainment (RHCSE), to produce animated and live-action kiddie and family entertainment for the cinema and television. The full-service production house would develop and produce screen entertainment exclusively from RHCB published books and characters. Now RHCSE is raising $100 million (£61 million) to fund its programming plans.

This March, UK-based Kommixx Entertainment, the film and television production company backed by Swiss venture fund EAM Private Capital, intends to go out into the market for RHCSE in March. It may yet approach an existing film and television financier such as Aramid Capital to help it raise the money. The $100M will be used to develop cartoons and live-action films and television series based on RHCB properties, as well as video games and toys. The deal includes authors like Jacqueline Wilson, whose Tracy Beaker character is already a hit for the BBC, The Golden Compass author Philip Pullman; and Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld novels are enormously popular with UK readers. Children’s illustrators on Random House’s books include Quentin Blake, Shirley Hughes and John Burningham.

RHSCE is run jointly by Andrew Cole-Bulgin of Kommixx and Edward Glauser. Cole-Bulgin said: “What’s interesting about creating children’s entertainment is that you have multiple revenue streams.”