The media licensing business is a huge market, but much of the work involved is still handled manually through email and spreadsheets. A startup called Flowhaven is working to change that. The company, which has now closed with $ 16 million Series A funding, helps brands manage their licensing partnerships, including account management aspects, individual product information, financial information, and more. yet.
The new round was led by Sapphire Sport, the part of Sapphire Ventures specializing in sports, media and lifestyle brands. Existing investors Global Founders Capital and Icebreaker.vc are also back, bringing Flowhaven's total increase to date to $ 21.5 million.
The idea of modernizing the media licensing business came from a founder who had direct experience in the sector.
Flowhaven CEO Kalle Törmä previously worked on the license for the Angry Birds mobile game franchise while in Rovio, starting in 2012. While there, he created the company's global merchandising side management project, which later expanded to include partnerships for Angry Birds Star Wars Games and Angry Birds Transformers.
"It was evident that the workflows were very disrupted: from trade management, or agreements, product approvals and financial data. The information was very confusing. Plus, a lot of things were lost," explains Törmä.
It was also time-consuming and difficult to collect data that would allow management to understand how the company was doing.
The challenges Törmä faced at Rovio led him to understand what it would take to create a solution like Flowhaven, in particular, the difficulty of managing complicated licensing workflows and schedules through manual methods.
He left Rovio in 2016 and founded Flowhaven, where he is joined by university friend and CCO Timo Olkkola, whose background is in sales.
Today, the Flowhaven licensing platform automates the brand licensing workflow process, including planning and strategy, account and contract management, content distribution, project approvals, royalty reporting and more.
It also helps keep teams on hours that can often be tight in the media and entertainment industry.
"There is always a time frame that follows, whether it's a movie release or a game," says Törmä. "There are a lot of pieces on the go to conclude all the deals and then move the products through the approvals [so when], let's say, a movie comes out, a couple of months earlier, the goods arrive on store shelves, "he says.
"If you don't have the products approved and ready, you haven't really gained the momentum," adds Törmä.
Flowhaven claims that its software not only saves time, but also money. The company estimates that licensing professionals waste 50 hours a month at $ 70 an hour on jobs that could be automated. This equates to roughly $ 42,000 a year wasted on a single professional.
Since its new funding, Flowhaven's software-as-a-service platform has been adopted by nearly 100 companies, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies in markets such as media, entertainment, sports, fashion and corporate and consumer brands. . some customer names cannot be shared, Flowhaven says it is working with Nintendo, LAIKA, Games Workshop, Acamar Films and Crunchyroll.
Its pricing is based on how many users will be on the platform. This does not include those with guest access from outside the organization, which are always free.
The company also reports 400% year-on-year growth and says it expects this trend to continue, but refuses to share its current revenue figures.
The additional funding will help Flowhaven fuel its growth, expand its product and platform, and help with hiring, says Törmä. Today, the company's staff are split between offices in Helsinki, London, and LA, but say they are seeing the greatest growth in the past two.
Regarding the product itself, the plan is to further develop Flowhaven's analysis and accelerate the information exchange process between brand owners and their licensees.
Flowhaven is already growing in 2021. It started the year with a team of 30 and now has 43 people. Throughout the year, Törmä says the team will grow to nearly 100.
