While Jeffrey Katzenberg‘s Quibi is dead and gone (except for a lingering legal dispute), his investment firm WndrCo is still actively funding other young startups.
WndrCo co-led a $27 million Series A funding round in Wrapbook, a financial services startup catering to the gig economy initially focused on the entertainment industry. Also leading the funding were venture-capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Equal Ventures and Uncork Capital and Michael Ovitz, the one-time Hollywood super agent.
The company’s tech platform is designed for production companies to manage on-boarding, payroll, insurance and other functions, as well as to let cast and crew members and employees track their payments. Wrapbook’s competitors include ABS Payroll, CAPS, Media Services, and Entertainment Partners.
“It’s time we bring production financial services into the 21st century,” Katzenberg, managing partner WndrCo, said in a statement. “We need a technology solution that will address the increasing complexities of production onboarding, pay and insuring cast and crew, only exacerbated by COVID-19, and I believe that Wrapbook delivers.”
Wrapbook launched last year amid the COVID pandemic, landing clients for various TV, film, digital and commercial productions. According to the company, about 12% of workers on its platforms have reused their profile in at least one other production (e.g., they were paid by two or more employers via Wrapbook).
Wrapbook cofounder and CEO Ali Javid previously was VP of business development at Body Labs, a startup that developed AI-based 3D body-scanning software acquired by Amazon, and earlier worked at Intel. “With this great group of tech and entertainment leaders, we will transform the industry with easy-to-use software built for production,” Javid said.
Wrapbook “takes a fresh approach to the complex problem of getting project-based workers paid efficiently,” Kristina Shen, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said in a statement. “We are impressed with the management team’s breadth of experience and their incredible early momentum.”
Founded in 2018, Wrapbook raised $3.6 million in seed-round funding from investors including Equal Ventures, Uncork Capital, Paylocity founder Steve Sarowitz, and 4S Bay Partners.
Wrapbook’s founders are Javid; chief marketing officer Cameron Woodward; CTO Hesham El-Nahhas; and chief product officer Naysawn Naji. The company is based in New York with offices in Los Angeles and Toronto.
