Ingenious-backed The Kindness of Strangers has been selected to open the 69th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2019. The film is directed by Lone Scherfig and will also play in competition.

The New York-set drama stars Zoe Kazan, Tahar Rahim, Andrea Riseborough, Caleb Landry Jones, Jay Baruchel and Bill Nighy. The Kindness of Strangers is a contemporary ensemble drama that follows a group of characters all trying to survive a cold New York City winter, who find laughter, love and kindness in each other. 

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Three Ingenious productions have been shortlisted for a Broadcast Award in the ‘Best Pre-School Programme’ category. The Broadcast Awards recognise the UK’s most groundbreaking and successful content, rewarding creativity, quality and originality.

The Ingenious programmes that have been shortlisted are:

Claude
Claude is a children’s animation that follows the humorous adventures of a beret-clad dog, based on the best-selling book series. The show has many stars appearing as loveable characters, from Simon Callow CBE who plays raconteur sock, Sir Bobblysock, to Jane Horrocks who plays Claude’s owner, Mrs Shinyshoes. Claude was first released in the UK in June 2018 on Disney Junior.

Pablo 
Pablo is an autistic boy who draws animal friends to help him through the challenges of daily life. It was first released in the UK in October 2017 on CBeebies and was recently nominated for a Children’s BAFTA in the ‘Digital’ category.

Waffle the Wonder Dog 
Waffle the Wonder Dog follows an adorable fluffy dog who can’t help but cause trouble and is on a crash course to cementing the Brooklyn-Bell blended family. The first series premiered on CBeebies in February 2017, with the second series beginning in July of this year. The show was recently also nominated for a Children’s BAFTA in the ‘Pre School – Live Action’ category.

Click here to see the full Broadcast Awards shortlist.

We are delighted to announce that we have won Most Impactful Investment at the 2018 Growth Investor Awards. We are also proud to have been a finalist in the non-AIM category for Best BR Investment Manager. The awards celebrate those who successfully deploy investment into high potential businesses and recognise the impact beyond that investment. Winners were announced on Wednesday, 7 November 2018 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel.

Our win for Most Impactful Investment commends our investment in Mindful Education, an award-winning content and technology company specialising in creating innovative, flexible professional courses and apprenticeships. Mindful Education partner with colleges around the UK to deliver pioneering courses that meet the needs of students, government and industry.

The investment made by Ingenious enabled Mindful Education to significantly increase their product range, further expand their sector-leading work in analytics, grow their team size to 34 and increase their marketing capacity – all without compromising on the quality of their content and technology. The company has gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2015 and is now working with 18 colleges around the UK – keeping them on track for their 1,000th learner to start a course in January. Like the judges, we have been impressed by the impact such a young company has had on the sector and wider community.

I am delighted that the work of our investment team and of the Mindful Education team has been recognised with this award. This achievement recognises our extensive sector knowledge and operating experience and how we are able to bring these skills to support the ambitions of fantastic growth businesses.

Neil Forster

CEO at Ingenious

The Ingenious investment team have absolutely transformed our company. Their ability to simultaneously balance high-level strategy and detailed operational implementation has allowed us to improve multiple aspects of how we work. They have supported our vision from day one and their investment has been absolutely pivotal to our growth.

Mark McKenna

Founder and Managing Director at Mindful Education

Housing needs in the UK are changing amid declining levels of home ownership and lifestyle shifts. Rather than the traditional ‘buy-and-hold’ model, residential housing needs are shifting towards developments that are built for rent and aimed towards a specific demographic who are at a particular life stage. As such, funding needs are changing to support these types of developments and this should lead investors to consider new ways of accessing the property market.

For many years, the typical approach to property investing has been through longer-term investments in buy-to-let and equity. While this ‘bricks and mortar’ approach has worked well for many investors, a fully-valued market in both the residential and commercial sectors means that capital appreciation opportunities are now looking limited. Instead, investors should be looking to work their property assets operationally through shorter-term loan opportunities, which are used to fund the development or redevelopment of buildings in niche areas of the market. By viewing property investments as operational assets, investors can access a growing market opportunity that offers the potential for greater long-term reward.

Ingenious-backed Stellata has announced today the latest successful milestone in their flagship 100MWAC solar project, Merredin Solar Farm, by signing a Share Purchase Agreement with Risen Energy. The solar project is located in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt , and once operational will be the largest in the state by some margin.

Chinese company, Risen Energy, is one of the largest photovoltaic (PV) module suppliers in the world. The collaboration continues to build momentum for Stellata, with construction of Merredin Solar Farm scheduled to commence in late 2018 and energisation expected in Q3 2019. Stellata will continue to support Risen Energy with the development of the project.

The proposed solar farm will consist of roughly 400,000 single-axis tracking solar PV modules covering an area of roughly 350 hectares across WA’s Central Wheatbelt, with an expected output of 281GWh per annum. On completion of the project, Merredin Solar Farm will be capable of delivering enough energy to power in excess of 42,000 WA homes annually.

Commenting on the agreement, Sebastian Speight, Managing Director at Ingenious Infrastructure said “We are delighted to have reached this milestone and will be supporting Risen Energy into the construction phase at the end of 2018. This is the first project sale that Ingenious Infrastructure has completed outside of the UK and we look forward to replicating this success in the Republic of Ireland and the other international markets where we are currently developing renewable energy assets”.

Commenting on the agreement, Guy Beesley, Managing Director at Stellata Energy said “As a West Australian company our goal has always been to deliver as much renewable energy as possible on to the state’s electricity network. Merredin Solar Farm is an excellent project, ideally located, and will be a major contributor to WA’s renewable generation portfolio. Stellata will be on hand to assist Risen during the construction phase and we look forward to the project being energised in the second half of 2019.”

John Zhong, Project Development and Investment Director at Risen Energy commented “Our first acquisition for the 100 megawatt (AC) Yarranlea Solar Farm in Queensland was completed in early 2018 and construction is underway. Merredin Solar Farm is our second acquisition with the Share Purchase Agreement executed in October 2018.”

Ingenious Infrastructure today announced it has successfully closed an investment into Reactive Technologies in support of the company’s most ambitious phase of growth to date.

Ingenious’ investment in Reactive Technologies is in line with its ongoing drive to seek out high-growth investment opportunities in the energy, communications, transportation and resource efficiency industries for the recently launched Infrastructure Ventures EIS Service. To date, Ingenious Infrastructure has deployed over £700m in energy infrastructure projects across the UK, Republic of Ireland and Australia.

Reactive Technologies is an energy company facilitating the transition to a low carbon future, through the implementation of world-leading technology solutions to address the energy industry’s greatest challenges. Reactive Technologies offers unique measurement and analytics services for grid operators, an energy optimisation platform for corporates and an Enhanced Power Purchase Agreement for renewable generators.

As a result of this investment, Reactive Technologies will be scaling up their activities to deliver services to new customers worldwide. Reactive Technologies’ innovative services enable corporates, renewable generators and grid operators to actively mitigate rising energy costs, optimise their renewable assets in a non-subsidy environment and gain unprecedented real-time grid visibility allowing for faster and more cost-effective decision making.

Commenting on the investment, Guy Ranawake, Investment Director at Ingenious said: “Reactive Technologies have developed and commercialised a number of compelling solutions for the evolving energy sector and have built a strong intellectual property portfolio. As an active investor, developer and manager of a wide range of energy infrastructure assets, Ingenious is delighted to be supporting world-leading innovation in the sector. We look forward to working closely with Reactive to implement the necessary solutions required as we transition towards a lower carbon energy future.”

Marc Borrett, CEO of Reactive Technologies said: “We are delighted that Ingenious has come onboard as the newest member of our investment team. Ingenious has an impressive portfolio of synergistic investments across a number of key geographies and we are excited to work with them on our most expansive growth phase yet. The investment from Ingenious represents a significant financial step forward for Reactive in our ongoing funding journey and underscores the commercial potential for our services worldwide.”

Mark Gill, Andrew Gunn, Guy Botham and Vincent Bruzzese have teamed to launch Solstice Studios, a Los Angeles-based theatrical producer and distributor that will focus on mid-budget movies for wide release.

The company opens its doors today with $400 million in capitalisation, including $150 million through Ingenious Media, and will be involved in fully financing, producing, developing, selling internationally and distributing feature films in the U.S. on a wide-release basis. The plan is for Solstice to produce 3-5 movies a year for a global audience in the $30 million – $80 million range, while acquiring another 2-4 titles a year.

For its productions, Solstice will target movies with global appeal, primarily in the action, thriller and action-comedy space. In the American acquisitions arena, the company will consider any film that merits a wide U.S. release including action, thriller, comedy, romantic comedy, science fiction and horror. Solstice Studios is expected to grow to 65 people in its first year with plans of also launching an in-house foreign sales division.

Between the co-founders they possess a $5 billion production track record. After exiting Millennium Films in January 2017 as president, Gill, the former production chief at Warner Bros Independent and Miramax whose credits includes award-winning hits Pulp Fiction and The English Patient, began putting a plan in place to build a studio over the course of 20 months and reached out to those with whom he had long-standing business relationships. Gill has known Bruzzese –a MarketCast vet, OTX president and former head of STX’s strategy and analytics– since his marketing days at Columbia Pictures, over the last 20 years. Bruzzese will serve as Solstice’s Marketing and Strategy Head.

Botham, who will serve as co-head of production with Gunn, is a leading VFX entrepreneur of 15 years. His credits include Wonder Woman, Avatar, The Social Network, Benjamin Button, Wolverine, The Avengers and The Revenant, and most recently he was the founder and owner of Vitality VFX. Gunn has a 20-year $1.2 billion track record as producer and production executive. He has produced such films as Freaky Friday, The Haunted Mansion and Race to Witch Mountain for Walt Disney Pictures and is a producer on its upcoming Cruella starring Emma Stone.

With such mid-budget features as Warner Bros’ Crazy Rich Asians and New Line’s The Nun excelling at the box office, it’s proof the fare works at the domestic and global box office and that’s where Solstice Studios comes in. “If the movies are good, people will go,” says Gill, who has also had success with mid-budget action fare such as Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen, which together minted close to $400M at the global box office. Over the past 12 years, the number of studios’ wide releases have dwindled by 26%, while the number of mini-major/independent releases have dropped by 42% over the past three years. Meanwhile, the international box office has jumped 72% over the last decade and domestic has hit banner levels north of $11 billion over the last three years. That’s an incredible disconnect between supply and demand, and it serves as perfect timing in the marketplace for Solstice.

“The demand is still there, but the supply has gone down,” says Gill of the bottleneck. “Our focus will be those wide-release films, which U.S. theaters want, Americans still go to see, and which drive international independent distributors’ slates,” he adds.

Ingenious, founded by Patrick McKenna in 1998, has facilitated funding for films including Avatar, Life of Pi and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Said Will Harrison, Managing Director of Ingenious Media: “We couldn’t be happier to be supporting Mark and his team of industry veterans in this enormously exciting production and distribution initiative. The independent feature film space has been increasingly underserved and producers everywhere will be delighted to find a new distribution buyer and production partner in the market. Ingenious has a proud track record of bringing together top creative talent and the very best commercial partners, a tradition which this new venture will help us continue.”

Christopher Milburn and Gareth West curated and brokered the Ingenious funding and will have an ongoing role in sourcing projects and co-financing opportunities at Solstice. The deal was negotiated by Gill and Botham for Solstice and Peter Touche, Ingenious Media’s head of film.

Neil Sacker and David Eisman of Skadden repped the company. Lindsay Conner, partner and Chair of the Media and Entertainment Group at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP and his partner Sarah Fergusson Chambless represented Solstice’s equity capital and P&A financier, a private U.S. family office. Anders Erdén, Director of Legal and Business Affairs acting for Ingenious.

Joining the four co-founders on the Solstice team include Physical Production Head Rene Besson (Driven, The Expendables); Head of Distribution Elliot Slutzky, most recently from Open Road; SVP and CTO Ed Churchward, formerly of Vitality VFX; SVP Strategy Miriam Brin, formerly of STX and OTX; and SVP Production & Development Beth Bruckner O’Brien, who was formerly with Millennium as VP Production where she worked on such movies as Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, the Expendables franchise and Hitman’s Bodyguard.

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We were delighted to recently attend the annual Script to Screen conference in Toronto. Each year, host Winston Baker brings together hundreds of directors, producers and film industry experts to provide delegates with a step-by-step guide to the filmmaking process as well as discussing the various paths and avenues to film funding.

From the creative aspects involved in finding the perfect script, to packaging talent that appeals to producers, the Script to Screen summit shows budding filmmakers how to navigate the complexities of the film industry.

Ingenious Media investment director Andrea Scarso attended the event and appeared on a co-production discussion panel where he gave his knowledge and expertise of film finance.

Following the event, Andrea commented: “I was delighted to be given the opportunity to attend this summit, which is now in its tenth year. The film industry is a multi-faceted business; a hugely daunting prospect for anyone starting out, so I was thrilled to share my experience and understanding on one aspect of a hugely elaborate process.

Conferences like these can provide aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters with a unique opportunity to develop their knowledge of the film industry, and I believe they play a crucial role in helping artistic talent to realise their creative ambitions

Andrea Scarso

Managing Director at Ingenious

The taxpayer-funded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) council have announced they are to fund nine new university-led creative clusters along with an associated Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) for the cultural and creative industries.

This commitment to a creative industries clusters programme forms part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy and specifically part of the ‘sector deal’ announced earlier this year.

We’re delighted with this news and welcome the commitment. We’re also pleased to make our own contribution to the pursuit of knowledge in the creative sector by part-funding Michael Franklin’s post-doctoral research on examining the understanding and management of risk in the film industry in collaboration with the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship (ICCE) at Goldsmiths in the University of London.

Michael’s research enquires into the need for new digital-business models in the film industry: it is commercially focused but also academically rigorous. It serves as a model for the kind of industrially focused and commercially aware R&D work the new Policy and Evidence Centre should undertake on behalf of the sector.