THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Friday, September 13, 2019 |B5
BUSINESS NEWS
Documentary films and TV
series continue to be popular
on networks and streaming
services and a new startup
wants in on the action.
XTRLLC, a documentary-
production company that says
it has backing from the likes
of former AOL Chief Executive
Tim Armstrong and Josh
Kushner, brother of President
Trump’s senior adviser and
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is
looking to break into a niche
that has heated up in recent
years thanks to documenta-BYETHANMILLMANries likeNetflix Inc.’s film
about the Fyre Festival and
Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly”
docuseries.
XTR founder and CEO Bryn
Mooser said the old ways of
making a documentary—from
production to distribution—
have rapidly evolved.
Better and more affordable
technology, including smart-
phone cameras, has made
documentaries a cheap en-
deavor, he said, while the rise
of streaming services means
more people than ever can
see the finished product.
“Unless you were in a big
city and you could go to an
art house movie theater, up
until the last five to 10 years,
you just couldn’t access docu-
mentaries at this scale,” Mr.
Mooser said. Now, thanks to
streaming services, he said:“you have huge audiences see-
ing this kind of content for
the first time, and they’re re-
ally responding to it.”
Documentaries have been a
major offering from Netflix,
whose popular original docu-
mentaries this year have in-
cluded “Fyre: The Greatest
Party That Never Happened,”
along with films showcasing
Beyoncé, Travis Scott and Bob
Dylan.
Mr. Mooser, a two-time Os-
car nominee in the documen-
tary short subject category,
declined to give XTR’s valua-
tion and budget. He said the
company has raised funds “in
the mid-seven-figures,” add-
ing that it already has in-
vested in eight documentaries
and 35 television shows in
various stages of develop-
ment.XTR’s startup-style finan-
cial structure is unusual for a
documentary production com-
pany. But with a promising
market, Mr. Mooser said, the
company wanted to move
fast.
XTR also has partnered
with established production
companies—including Anony-
mous Content—to co-produce
material, which XTR lead in-
vestor Franklin McLarty said
will help the company “punch
above our weight class.”
Mr. McLarty, who will
serve on XTR’s board of direc-
tors, helped lead the initial in-
vestment from the McLarty
Arquette Group, a family en-
tity that includes David Ar-
quette, the actor and profes-
sional wrestler, who is
married to a cousin of Mr.
McLarty.Documentaries Lure Financiers
Startup backed by
former AOL executive
seeks to tap into
popularity of the genreA scene from ‘Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé.’ The rise of streaming services is creating demand for more content.NETFLIX/EVERETT COLLECTIONwould choose Mr. Neumann’s
successor if he dies or is per-
manently disabled in the next
10 years.
Potential investors have also
questioned Mr. Neumann’s
sales of hundreds of millions of
dollars of We stock and loans
of more than $740 million tied
to his shares, according to the
Journal and regulatory filings.
We officials and their advis-
ers have been in a series of
meetings in recent days as
questions swirl over whether
Continued from page B1
younger fashion-conscious
consumers in competition
with Amazon, whose Japan
unit had sales of $13.8 billion
last year, and homegrown rival
Rakuten Inc.
“We are aiming to become
No. 1 in domestic sales vol-
ume” in the next five years or
so, said Yahoo Japan Chief Ex-
ecutive Kentaro Kawabe at a
news conference. “Some say
Rakuten and Amazon are too
strong, but with this capital
alliance with Zozo, we are
quite close to reaching that
goal.”
Mr. Maezawa said he de-
cided recently that at 43, his
life was at a turning point. Mr.
Maezawa signed up last year
to fly around the moon with
Elon Musk’s SpaceX vehicle in
2023, and he disclosed at the
news conference that he plans
an additional moon trip.
Compared with general
merchandisers such as Ama-
zon, Zozotown, started in
2004, is a more popular fash-
ion platform for the trend-
conscious. Most of its custom-
ers are women who tend to be
in their 20s and 30s.TOKYO—A billionaire entre-
preneur’s midlife crisis helped
SoftBank GroupCorp. affiliate
Yahoo JapanCorp. strike the
biggest deal in its history and
lift its e-commerce business
against rivals such asAma-
zon.comInc.
Once a corporate cousin of
the U.S. Yahoo website, Yahoo
Japan is now a separate com-
pany under SoftBank’s control
and increasingly focused on
commerce rather than its orig-
inal core business of selling
advertising against content
such as news and sports.
That shift will accelerate
with Yahoo Japan’s $3.7 billion
plan to take a 50.1% stake in
Japanese online fashion re-
tailerZozoInc. Zozo founder
Yusaku Maezawa, who is sell-
ing most of his 36.8% stake
and resigned as chief execu-
tive Thursday, said he wanted
to leave the company he built
and focus on personal ambi-
tions including traveling into
space.
With Zozo in its stable, Ya-
hoo Japan hopes to attract
BYMEGUMIFUJIKAWA
Yahoo Japan’s Deal
Aims to Lift Retail
the company will go through
with the offering, one of the
biggest in what could be a re-
cord year for new issues. But
the choosing of a listing venue,
together with the expected val-
uation cut and governance
overhaul, show that it has de-
cided to plow forward, even if
that means raising less that it
had originally hoped.
One major motivating factor
is $6 billion in loans We has ar-
ranged that are contingent on
at least $3 billion being raised
in the share offering.
The IPO frenzy this year has
kicked up a heated battle be-
tween the New York Stock Ex-
change and Nasdaq, which see
big IPOs as franchise-defining
opportunities that can help
land subsequent business, be-
come key marketing tools and
represent new sources of trad-
ing revenue.We Wo rk
To List on
Nasdaq
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