Silicon Valley investment firm Maum Capital Group has struck a strategic and financial alliance with Globalgate, the local-language film and TV production consortium assembled by Lionsgate.

The move involves an investment of unspecified value and significance into Globalgate. It also sees the appointment of Globalgate’s executive chairman William Pfeiffer as CEO of Maum affiliates, including Maum Culture Innovation and Maum Studio, which are focused on content-based businesses.

The Maum-Globalgate alliance “furthers Maum’s plans to harness and expand Korean and global content, filmmakers, and talent on the worldwide stage,” the companies said in a statement. Korean music and TV content is currently among the most exportable, following the successes of BTS and Blackpink, TV hit “Squid Game” and the Oscar success of “Parasite.”

The pair explained that the deal and Pfeiffer’s expanded role are complementary to Globalgate’s array of 15 consortium partners.

Globalgate’s other consortium partners include Lionsgate (U.S./U.K./Canada), Rakuten (Japan), Televisa (Latin America), TF1 (France), Nordisk (Scandinavia), Lotte (Korea), Tobis (Germany), Rai (Italy), TME (Turkey), Belga Films (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), Paris Filmes (Brazil), CineColombia/Dynamo (Colombia), Falcon (Indonesia) and Viva Communications (Philippines).

Maum was founded in 2021 by Brian Koo (aka Koo Bon-woong), who is the son of the late Koo Ja-hong, former chairman of LS Group, a large Korean conglomerate with interests in the materials and energy sectors. In 2022, the Palo Alto-based Maum made a KRW140 billion ($100 million) investment in Korean film production and distribution firm Showbox.

At the time of the Showbox investment, Koo said that Maum’s aim was to remove the K (short for Korean) from the phrase K-content, and replace it with the notion of locally-produced content targeting a global market.

Globalgate has produced 20 films since its launch in 2016 and is working on a content development pipeline of over 75 projects across film, digital and TV series. Recent releases include “Dhamaka” (India) and “Sin Hijos” (Mexico). It is also readying “Hunting Season” (aka “Jagdsaison,” Germany) and “Mama o Papa,” a Mexican adaptation of Korean hit film “Miss Granny.”

“I am thrilled to be allied with Globalgate and further to have William lead the grand vision as the CEO of Maum Culture Innovation.  As Maum will be serving as the most powerful platform creator powered by web 3.0 technologies with numerous valuable IPs that we are creating. [This] brings us even closer to building the definitive global major studio,” said Koo in a prepared statement.
“The opportunities for the convergence of technology and content among different cultures, language groups and territories are accelerating at an unprecedented scale, and Maum is keen to drive this momentum,” said Pfeiffer.

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