London-based FilmTech start-up, We Got POP Ltd. (“POP”), has been acquired by Entertainment Partners, the end-to-end provider of production and workforce management solutions to the entertainment industry and owner of the legendary Central Casting. Entertainment Partners is headquartered in LA and operates across the US & Canada.
We Got POP, established in 2014, has been on a mission to drive a smarter, fairer future for entertainment by building technology to digitise, connect and open the industry. Headquartered in London and New York, POP has revolutionised the way people in production are found, hired, managed and paid with their digital portals, providing a streamlined and secure system for production companies, their productions, crew, casting directors and background artists.
POP’s production portal has been widely adopted in the UK, with industry leading clients that include Sky Studios, Mammoth Screen, Sid Gentle Films, Studio Lambert and Two Rivers Media. Client Julie Clark, Head of Production, Studio Lambert affirms “POP is definitely the future… embrace it and you’ll never look back.”
Through this acquisition, the terms of which were not disclosed, Entertainment Partners and We Got POP will provide best-in-class technology & services for the casting and production management needs of its clients around the world. Together Entertainment Partners and POP are committed to optimising process efficiencies across productions, providing real-time access to information and data insights globally.
Demonstrating Entertainment Partners’ passion and belief in the technology, the integration of the two companies will kick-off with a roll-out of POP technology across all offices of Central Casting, Entertainment Partner's legendary casting company.
Mark Goldstein, CEO and President of Entertainment Partners: “Bringing together Central Casting with POP naturally complements our strategy to modernize and integrate the production process,” said EP President and CEO Mark Goldstein. “The POP team’s solutions, with their seamless workflow for selection, hiring, management and payment of talent and crew, will enable us to better serve our existing casting clients. POP will also allow us to expand Central Casting’s reach across the United States and into Europe and Canada led by Jennifer Bender partnering with POP’s technology and the POP team. In addition, with the power of their production portal as the foundation to drive workflow efficiency and greater connectivity between production companies and production and across the industry, POP will enable us to support our clients globally by broadening all of our production services across Europe beginning in 2021.” Kate McLaughlin, Founder and CEO of We Got POP: “There is significant alignment between POP and Entertainment Partners, both in our vision for a smarter industry and in our belief that technology can play a key role in driving to that better future. Our journey at POP has been an exciting one. And over the last year or so we have seen the beginning of a movement of people across the industry coming together to drive real change for the better. We are so excited about joining forces with Entertainment Partners. Coming together means synergies that will enable us both to more quickly deliver on the vision we share with our clients while simultaneously nurturing new opportunities to drive the industry forward.”
