Pocket.watch, a Culver City-based content creator and IP company for children and families, has partnered with Jellysmack, a global creator company, to grow the pocket.watch portfolio of creator partners.
Jellysmack, based in New York City, is providing up to $25 million to finance Pocket.watch creators’ video catalogues in customized ways that serve the specialized needs of kids and family creators, Pocket.watch said.
Sean Atkins, president of Jellysmack, said that collaborating with Pocket.watch allows the company to work with a whole new sector of content creators and aligns with its mission of enabling creators to “Go Bigger.”
“We have a shared philosophy and purpose in the creator economy and are thrilled to now be linked to some of the top names in kids and family entertainment through this partnership,” Atkins said.
Under the partnership, both companies plan to create stability and predictability for kids and family creators, enabling them to invest more heavily in their content, thanks to Jellysmack’s creator financing and Pocket.watch’s tailored assets for monetizing kids and family content on and off YouTube, including Pocket.watch being only one of a small group of companies that is able to direct-sell ad inventory on the YouTube Kids service, the company’s release said.
Chase Landau, senior vice president of creator partnerships at Pocket.watch, said the company’s staff did a lot of research into finding the best company to select as a partner on the new fund.
Among the first Pocket.watch creators to receive financing are the people behind “The Onyx Family” and “The Stella Show “The Onyx Family” is the creation of parents Mirthell and Rita Onyx and their four children, while “The Stella Show” is the brainchild of an 8-year-old YouTube star and her parents.
“The Stella Show” has hired a writer and director with the financing to help them take their content to the next level, the release said.
“The Stella Show” family of channels on YouTube just reached nearly 1 billion lifetime views and Pocket.watch has already seen success clearing, packaging and distributing their content across Pocket.watch’s free ad-supported streaming TV channels and other streamers such as The Roku Channel Kids & Family, the release added.w
“The Onyx Family” is also on YouTube, and features parents Mirthell and Rita and their four children as they navigate life. In addition to the live-action shows, the family appears as animated characters in “Onyx Monster Mysteries,” as well as in a podcast. Their social media sites have 7 million subscribers.
