Game talent agency DDM teams up with Seahorn Capital Group to finance development studios

Digital Development Management is a talent agency for video games and digital entertainment, and it’s teaming up with investment firm Seahorn Capital Group to finance game startups and interactive media. The new joint venture is Seahorn Investments.

Northampton, Mass.-based DDM, headed by founder Jeff Hilbert and DDM president Joe Minton (pictured right), provides the game industry expertise while Marc Jackson (pictured left), head of Seahorn Capital Group, contributes the financing know-how.

“This is the last piece to fall into place so we can have a full-service business,” said Minton in an interview with GamesBeat.

The first client of Seahorn Investments is Tequila Works, the creators of the Xbox Live Arcade game Deadlight (pictured above). Seahorn’s job is to provide every service a video game requires in order to reach launch.

DDM has made its name as a talent agency, matching up game development studios with publishers and other entities that want to publisher games.

Jackson will serve as finance director for Seahorn Investments. He has secured more than $150 million in funding for game companies, financing studios such as Big Red Button Entertainment, Fearless Studios, and Rocksteady Studios. The latter is well known for reviving the Batman video game franchise with Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City.

Seahorn Investments will provide financial advice and help raise funding for its clients. It will do so by orchestrating private placements, mergers and acquisitions, and complex financing deals. It will also help raise money for clients through angel investor and incubation partner relations.

DDM represents some prestigious independent game developers, including Ninja Theory (Devil May Cry), Yager (Spec Ops: The Line), and Zombie Studios (Blacklight Retribution). DDM represents game studios as an agent. It provides consulting for game companies. And it facilitates game production. A lot of the work has been helping transform game companies to adapt to new platforms.

“In my 20 years in the industry, this is one of the most important deals I have orchestrated,” said Jackson. “Joe and Jeff have done an amazing job reinventing the agency model for game development talent.”