ROCA X invests in FilmChain, the London-based fintech founded by two Romanian women

ROCA X announces a first round of investment in FilmChain, a fintech company dedicated to the film industry, with headquarters in London and New York, founded by the Romanian co-founders Maria Tanjala and Irina Albita.

The platform helps the entire film production and distribution chain with the automatic management of the fund distribution process and copyright management, while providing all stakeholders with a chance to follow the performance and effectiveness of the created content in real time. The FilmChain platform is used by distribution houses and independent film producers around the world, and the company has raised so far over £ 1.6 M from investors such as HearstLab, SFC Capital and FintechCircle.

“The film industry is now at a point where content creators are becoming more and more independent – from the reduction of production costs to the opening of new distribution channels through streaming platforms, technology becomes more agile and decentralized, following the trend of the Creator Economy. Most certainly, based on team experience, product utility and actual market needs, FilmChain has an opportunity to become a globally important player in the entertainment industry,” stated Bogdan Pasca, Investment Manager ROCA X.

The investment statement comes shortly after the announcement made by the company at the Film Festival in Berlin, regarding two new partnerships with Alamode Film Distribution (Germany) and Lumière (Benelux), two leading distributors for films and TV series in Europe. FilmChain’s portfolio of clients includes major names such as Eurimages, German Film Fund and Oscar nominated movies, such as Colectiv and Animal Kingdom.

The purpose of this round is to provide the company with the resources needed to scale their sales operations, to increase the client basis, and to extend the service on the US market, preliminary to Series A round. FilmChain is a cloud-based, which automatically manages the revenue distribution table for the entire production and distribution chain of a film, thereby offering each stakeholder a chance to follow, in real time, the performance and effectiveness of the created content. By using the blockchain protocol, the platform ensures the transparency of data for each of those involved in the project, while the integration with banking operators minimizes the transaction costs and instantly distributes the revenue in the assigned accounts.

“We are delighted to open this investment round with ROCA X, a team we resonated remarkably well with, both in vision and scaling plans, and we thank them for their support. This is a turning point for the digitalization of the entertainment industry, and FilmChain is the first digital platform providing a unique degree of automation, efficiency and transparency,” said Maria Tanjala, FilmChain founder. 

“With ROCA X as a strategic investor, we aim to extend FilmChain on the independent market, as well as to create new partnerships with major global content distributors. ROCA X’s experience in  the development of tech start-ups makes this partnership an ideal one,” added Irina Albita, co-founder of FilmChain.