US-headquartered talent agency Creative Artists Agency has launched a Canada-based startup studio called Creative Labs that will incubate media technology startups.
The venture is financed by $12.5m of capital from investors including media company Telegraph Media Group, entertainment distributor Entertainment One, Boatrocker Ventures, Real Ventures, Seedcamp Ventures and private investors such as Saul Klein, Jeff Mallett and Lane Merrifield.
Creative Labs will look to create companies in sectors such as gaming, over-the-top video, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence-based messaging, and e-commerce, mobile, social and digital publishing online brands.
Michael Yanover, CAA’s head of business development, said: “Throughout the past decade, we have conceptualised and launched several successful startups on behalf of the agency and our clients, and now, through the formation of Creative Labs, we are able to further our efforts in a scalable, systematic manner.
“Our clients are innovative and entrepreneurial, and Creative Labs will play an integral role in helping develop their new business ideas from concept to launch, and beyond.”
The studio will be headed by CEO Mike Edwards, a serial entrepreneur who founded early-stage investment fund InitioGroup in 2010, and who was CEO of Mobio Technologies, a social network for online media influencers, for almost four years up to August 2016.
Creative Labs’ first two startups are Belletrist, a product-based media company that covers media and the arts from a female standpoint, and Ground Control, the developer of an interactive audio platform that works with voice-based operating systems.