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Tag: Calvin Cheng

  • Eros Investments and Xfinite partner with Calvin Cheng to launch XelebX

    Eros Investments and Xfinite partner with Calvin Cheng to launch XelebX

    Mumbai: Eros Investments and Xfinite have partnered with veteran entertainment and tech entrepreneur Calvin Cheng to launch XelebX, a web 3.0 members-only celebrity fan club.

    With the use of NFTs and fan tokens, the alliance will introduce over 200 million existing followers of global influencers and celebrities linked to the Eros ecosystem and its group companies to the new metaverse.

    Only NFT members will be able to access XelebX. They will have access to a number of advantages, such as exclusive access to virtual meet-ups with influencers, exclusive material, virtual backstage passes, and celebrity NFT collectibles.

    Speaking on this partnership, Eros Investments chairman Kishore Lulla said, “Over five decades, Eros has built one of the largest media and entertainment businesses, enthralling millions of fans and launching some of the biggest stars in India. One of the key reasons for our success is our ability to embrace change—from film to TV to the Internet and now web 3.0 and the readiness to lead it from the front. The metaverse and the immersive Internet are the technological tides that will carry us forward for the next 50 years. Eros is committed to being at the forefront of its adoption.”

    Furthermore, XelebX will introduce fan tokens that measure an influencer’s popularity and can be traded on significant exchanges, enabling holders from various fandoms to freely trade and swap value. As a result, influencers and celebrities will be able to work together and expand their fan bases in a manner that is naturally compatible with web 3.0 interoperability and composability. Xfinite’s Mad Influence, a well-known influencer marketing business, has joined XelebX.

    Xfinite CEO Swaneet Singh said, “With Xfinite, Eros has already gained invaluable experience in media built upon virtual assets and the blockchain. XelebX is the next natural innovation to bring the global community of entertainment fans into the metaverse and unlock immersive interaction with the influencers they follow.”

    Calvin Cheng added, “Web 3 is all about community building. Other platforms have tried this in the past. They built the tech but struggled to build the community—the key to web 3’s success. We already have the tech expertise and an amazing community of hundreds of millions of fans. We will now onboard them into the metaverse using the latest digital asset and web 3 technologies.”

     

  • US$100 million media fund launched at the Singapore Media Festival

    US$100 million media fund launched at the Singapore Media Festival

    MUMBAI: During the Singapore Media Festival, hosted by the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore, a US$100 million media fund was jointly launched to enhance China’s media and entertainment industry.

     

    The memorandum of understanding was signed by three parties namely China film industry tycoon Yu Dong, private equity firm Tembusu founder and chairman of NASDAQ-listed Bona Film, Singapore PE fund Tembusu Partners and local media entrepreneur Calvin Cheng.

     

    Minister for culture, community and youth and the second minister for communications and information, Lawrence Wong was also present at the occasion to witness the launch.

     

    The Singapore-based private equity media fund will be the first such non-reminbi dominated fund to invest in China’s media and entertainment Industry. It will be based in Singapore and will leverage on the country’s legal framework and status as a financial hub to attract investors from and outside the region. The US$100 million closed-end five-year media fund will be formalised on 31 March 2015, with fund raising to begin shortly after. Anchor investors are likely to include Bona Film Group as well as Thailand’s Chia Tai Group. The fund will focus on the Chinese market, home to the fastest growing media industry in the world. It will target media companies, content and technologies as investment targets. The promoters will also promote international cooperation opportunities between China and countries such as Singapore and the United States through co-productions or joint-ventures.

     

    Yu Dong commented, “Singapore is the perfect place to launch this fund as it is not only a financial capital of the world, but also as the place where East meets West. This fund will allow foreign investors to participate in the fastest growing media and entertainment market in the world. China’s media and entertainment industry is forecast to overtake Japan’s by 2018, and become the second-largest in the world, behind only the US. It is already the second-largest film market in the world, and China’s TV industry is set to surpass the UK and Germany by 2016 to also become the second-largest behind the UKThis phenomenal growth in China will create many exciting investment opportunities.”

     

    Tembusu Partners chairman Andy Lim said, “Tembusu Partners is proud to partner Yu Dong and Calvin Cheng in taking advantage of the exciting opportunities of the Chinese media and entertainment industry. Now investors in and outside the region will be able to participate in the exciting growth of this industry.”

     

    Calvin Cheng, who put the deal together, said, “I am excited about the establishment of this fund in Singapore and the boost it will bring to Singapore’s media industry. The existing Film and TV co-production agreement between Singapore and China opens up opportunities for the Fund to invest in projects that involve Singapore-based media companies. In addition, we will be looking at media companies globally that have a ‘China-story’; with the convergence of traditional media with the internet, there will be many exciting new opportunities that will emerge from the vast Chinese landscape, and we will be looking to invest in the best of them. ”

     

     “The establishment of this media fund in Singapore is a testament to the country’s position as a regional centre for the financing, production, management and distribution of compelling content. This fund will create an opportunity for Singapore’s media companies and talent to participate in the fast-growing media market in China,” said MDA assistant chief executive (Industry) Angeline Poh.

     

    “We are glad that the partners have chosen to launch the fund at the Singapore Media Festival (SMF) as we strive to establish SMF as the choice platform in Asia to foster international media partnerships and deals,” she said.