Wrapbook, a Burbank-based payroll startup, announced in late September it raised $20 million in equity financing, valuing the company at $750 million.
Bessemer Venture Partners provided the funding. The new valuation represents a decline from Wrapbook’s $1 billion valuation in 2021.
Wrapbook is part of a growing number of companies focused on bringing enterprise business-to-business offerings to the once-impenetrable Hollywood. Wrapbook was cofounded in 2018 by Cameron Woodward and Ali Javid, the latter of whom spent his post-grad career on the financial side of enterprise technology companies before starting Wrapbook.
“If you look at what’s happening with studios, they’re going through this major restructuring, trying to figure out streaming. The industry is in absolute flux,” Wrapbook chief executive Javid said. “And I think it’s been putting a ton of pressure on production companies because there are less productions and there is higher scrutiny.”
Wrangling Hollywood
The chaotic, hyper specific and short-term nature of Hollywood is perhaps difficult for tech companies to automate and scale. When a new project starts, production companies have to hire temporary workers and then end all their contracts on the same date. Workers have to be paid according to different union guidelines and also in accordance with laws of whichever state or municipality the shoot is taking place. Rules change depending on scheduling changes and how the project is distributed – is it a television show, commercial or movie, and is it released via streaming or theaters?
Production companies also need to keep track of tax credits and understand which they qualify for.
“You need a very purpose-built organization, because it’s not only software, it’s also the service experience,” Javid said. “If you’re Rippling, you onboard a client, you’re going to train a payroll person once and then the client is onboarded forever. If a production company adopts Wrapbook, every single freelance producer that gets hired for each new production is going to have to learn about Wrapbook.”
Wrapbook has no plans to expand its offering outside of the entertainment industry. Per the company, four studios used Wrapbook’s software in their productions in 2023 (“I can’t name the studios. I’d love to,” Javid said) and more than 40 talent agencies like the Creative Artists Agency and William Morris Endeavor have made profiles for actors and other talent on the platform.
“Wrapbook’s technology fundamentally enhances the capacity and impact of production finance teams,” Mary D’Onofrio, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, said in a statement. “We’ve been pursuing this investment for years, recognizing its potential to reshape entertainment finance.”
The company plans to grow its 280-and-something remote employee base into 400 people as it goes up against giants in its niche: Burbank-based Cast & Crew, which began in 1976 and went through a series of acquisitions between private equity firms, and Burbank-based Entertainment Partners, another private equity-owned payroll tech firm that started in 1976.
“I think an unfortunate model of private equity is they buy a company, they want to sell that company three years later, and they’re going to cut every single thing possible to maximize profit to sell in three years,” Javid said. “And that three-year window is not a long window to think about, well, what does the industry need? What should they go build?”
