This report is a partnership between WrapPRO and PitchBook, the go-to financial data and software platform that provides detailed information on private and public capital markets.
September sure felt a lot of like the 1980s in media and entertainment, with a spate of leverage buyouts, including the largest of all time, defining mergers and acquisitions activity.
LBOs valued at nearly $60 billion, including game giant Electronic Arts being taken private for a whopping $55 billion, were announced last month, according to data from PitchBook.
Here are the LBOs worth noting.
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts is going private in a $55 billion all-cash deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. Under the terms of the agreement, TheWrap reported on September 29, the investor group will acquire 100% of the company, with PIF rolling over its 9.9% stake. EA stockholders will receive $210 per share in cash — a 25% premium to its unaffected share price of $168.32 at market close on Sept. 25. It’s also a premium to its all-time high of $179.01 at market close on Aug. 14. The transaction will be funded by a combination of cash from PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, as well as the rollover of PIF’s stake — constituting an equity investment of approximately $36 billion.
Vimeo
Video hosting platform Vimeo, founded in 2004 and today boasts more than 300 million users, is being sold to Italy’s Bending Spoons for $1.4 billion, the company announced on September 10. The per-share purchase price represents a 91% premium over Vimeo’s 60-day volume-weighted average share price as of market close on Sept. 9, the company noted. Vimeo, which has once been part of Barry Diller’s IAC before being spun out in 2021, previously traded on Nasdaq. The company will now be private under the Milan-based tech conglomerate.
Integral Ad Science
Ad verification firm Integral Ad Science was sold to private equity firm Novacap on Sept. 24 for $1.9 billion. IAS, as it is known, offer services to ensure ads are seen by real people, appear in brand-safe and suitable environments, and prevent ad fraud. The offer represents a premium of approximately 22% to IAS’s closing share price on Nasdaq on Sept. 23.
“Today’s announcement is an exciting milestone for IAS. As a private company with the support of Novacap, we will have access to new resources to achieve our strategic goals and further build upon the differentiated value we bring our customers as we advance our mission to be the global benchmark for trust and transparency in digital media quality,” IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider said at the time of the deal’s announcement.
And Other M&A Deals …
Prize Picks
Daily fantasy sports platform Prize Picks said on September 22 it was selling a majority stake to Swiss lottery gaming giant firm Allwyn for $1.6 billion, a deal that values it at $2.5 billion. The 10-year-old Prize Picks will operate as a separate brand under Allywn.
The deal, representing the latest wave of opportunities being seized in the growing sports betting space, is expected to close in the first half of 2026, and Allwyn will finance it with cash and debt.
And One Significant Raise for a Non-Startup …
Lion Forge Entertainment
Lion Forge Entertainment, the 14-year-old comic book publisher-turned-live action studio controlled by the Steward family, received a $30 million investment from HarbourView Equity Partners, it was reported on September 9. Lion Forge is the Black-owned studio behind Oscar-winning “Hair Love” and the popular “Iyanu” series on the Cartoon Network and HBO Max.
The $30 million, which includes support from the Steward Family and Polarity who remain the majority owners of the company, will help Lion Forge grow its portfolio of intellectual property and expand its slate of premium franchises, especially in the kids, family, and young adult entertainment space, Pulse 2.o reported.
September in Startup Funding
September saw venture capital raises in media and entertainment startups and young companies hit more than $152 million through 51 deals, showing a slowing pace from previous months, according to new PitchBook data. August counted $236 million in raises through 57 deals, according to PitchBook’s revised data.
September’s investor activity, as it has been most of the year, was focused on AI and gaming.
For the year so far, raises exceed $7 billion but that figure may be misleading since it was skewed by a single raise in January of $3 billion by Infinite Reality, which bought the brand name of the former Napster file sharing company to use immersive technologies that offer a suite of services to brands and creators to increase audience engagement.
Here is a highlighted company for September — with a full chart of the top 15 financings below (Note: When an investor is not listed, it indicates they were not disclosed by the companies, PitchBook says.).
The News Movement
The News Movement, a Gen Z-focused social media group co-founded by Washington Post CEO Will Lewis, received a $10 million investment in mid-September, according to PitchBook. The investor was Forta, a UK-based fund backed by Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim al-Thani of Qatar, joined by a number of other Qatari investors, the Financial Times disclosed.
Lewis, who co-founded The News Movement in 2021 with former BBC journalist Kamal Ahmed before before joining The Post, remains a shareholder. The company will be folded into a larger company called Caliber that will include The News Movement, The Recount, a political news start-up acquired by The News Movement in 2023, and other smaller brands. The money will be used, in part, to launch a news app called SaySo, a platform for online creators to post and make money from news, the FT reported.
How the year is looking for VC deal activity
And in media …
