New York, NY & Paris, France – June 18, 2025 – HarbourView Equity Partners (HarbourView), a multi-strategy investment firm focused on investment opportunities in the music, sports, media and entertainment space, today announced it is leading a $85 million investment in Animaj, alongside Bpifrance, the French national investment fund and a key player in the French tech and AI ecosystem. Animaj is a digital-first AI-empowered media company transforming kids & family entertainment through its proprietary GenAI production tools and multi-platform franchise-building model. Animaj acquires and scales high-potential IPs by using data-driven insights, automating animation pipelines through AI, and distributing directly to platforms where kids already are.
“Animaj is reimagining children’s entertainment for the digital age,” said Sherrese Clarke, Founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners. “With proven monetization, an experienced team, and a strong pipeline of strategic IP opportunities, they are poised to become a category-defining leader. We’re thrilled to partner with the Animaj team as they scale globally.”
“We’re building something that’s never existed before. Animaj is a new kind of media company: data-driven, AI-powered, digital-first but multiplatform by design,” said Sixte de Vauplane, Animaj Co-Founder & CEO. “We don’t start with a TV show and hope kids will come. We start with where they already are – YouTube, Roblox, TikTok, Spotify – and we build from there.”
“We are delighted to announce Bpifrance’s strategic investment in Animaj, a pioneering player in the use of AI for audiovisual production. Its co-founders, Sixte de Vauplane and Grégory Dray, bring an innovative approach that places AI at the core of their value proposition, with a strong focus on editorial quality and the goal of creating high-quality, educational kids & family’s content. We firmly believe in their vision and look forward to supporting the company’s growth and future success,” said José Gonzalo, Executive Director, Bpifrance Direct Investment.
New funding will be used to scale Animaj’s AI-powered flywheel model – a digital-first, multi-platform ecosystem spanning YouTube, Roblox, TikTok, Spotify, and FAST channels – designed not only to scale, but also modernize underused IPs through AI-driven production and platform-native storytelling for today’s fragmented distribution landscape. It will also accelerate strategic IP acquisitions following Animaj’s purchase of the iconic Pocoyo brand, as the company builds a category-defining kids’ content portfolio spanning preschool to tweens and digital-native to cross-generational franchises.
The investment adds to HarbourView’s growing portfolio of media and IP assets, which spans film, television, music, and culturally impactful content companies such as Mucho Mas Media and MACRO. Pocoyo in particular enhances this portfolio as an iconic Hispanic brand with global recognition and cross-cultural appeal. Narrated in English by the iconic British actor Stephen Fry, the series reflects HarbourView’s focus on culturally relevant and globally scalable IP.
The round was led alongside Bpifrance, Left Lane Capital, Daphni, XANGE, and Marquee. New debt financing was provided by J.P. Morgan and Bootstrap Europe, bringing the total capital infusion to $85 million.
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