CAA Launches Startup Studio To Found New Tech And Media Companies

Leading talent agency CAA has announced the formation of a startup studio called Creative Labs that will incubate new consumer tech and media companies.

Based in Vancouver and headed up by chairman and co-founder Leonard Brody and CEO Mike Edwards, a team of engineers, designers, and developers will tap CAA’s resources, relationships, and talent to develop new businesses in the OTT, VR/AR, gaming, and AI/messaging spaces, Deadline reports — as well as digital consumer brands in ecommerce, mobile, social media, and publishing.

Creative Labs has raised $12.5 in venture funding from Boatrocker Ventures, Entertainment One (eOne), Real Ventures, and more. The startup studio has already launched two companies, per Deadline: Belletrist, a media company for millennial woman launched by CAA client Emma Roberts

and the entrepreneur Karah Preiss, and Ground Control, an interactive audio platform.

“Throughout the past decade, we have conceptualized and launched several successful startups on behalf of the agency and our clients, and now, through the formation of Creative Labs, we are able to further our efforts in a scalable, systematic manner,” said CAA’s head of business development, Michael Yanover, in a statement. Past ventures incubated at CAA include digital comedy brand Funny Or Die and influencer marketing company WhoSay.

Yanover, Brody, and Edwards will serve on the Creative Labs board of directors alongside gaming executive Pauline Moller and CAA’s head of mobile, Michael Blank.