 |
Emily Best | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 4, 1980 |
| Alma mater | Haverford College |
| Occupation(s) | Film producer, entrepreneur |
| Years active | 2010–present |
| Known for | Seed&Spark |
Emily Best (born August 4, 1980) is a film producer and entrepreneur known as founder and CEO of crowdfunding platform Seed&Spark and producer of the 2010 film Like the Water. [2]
Best grew up in Sacramento, California. She holds a bachelor of Anthropology and American Studies from Haverford College in Pennsylvania. [3] She also studied music and jazz singing at Taller de Músics in Barcelona. Best's mother was a fiction writer who became a cable company executive, [4] inspiring her to take on leadership positions, and her father is a journalist turned strategy consultant. She has one younger sister and one younger brother. [5]
Early jobs included working on an angora farm in Northern California and restaurant managing. [4]
Best began her career as an actress, joining a New York-based theater group with whom she teamed to feature film Like the Water in 2010, [5] with Best acting as producer.
Needing to raise additional last-minute funds for the film, Best created film-centric crowdfunding and distribution platform Seed&Spark. In 2012, a public version of Seed&Spark was launched with Best as CEO. Best won The New York Observer blog Betabeat's competition series The Pitch in 2013, receiving a $10,000 grant for Seed&Spark from SoftBank Capital and Lerer Ventures. [6] Lerer principal Steve Schlafman explained that Best "proved to us that her product is working and solves a real problem that she experienced first hand." [7] She was named in 2014 one of 78 "Women of Influence" by the New York Business Journal , and cites David Williams, Robyn Ward, Peter Samuelson, Chad Troutwine, and Cody Simms as mentors. [4]
Best created the prototype for film-centric crowdfunding and VOD distribution platform Seed&Spark with Caroline Von Kuhn and Liam Brady [8] while raising funds for their feature film Like the Water in 2010. Through their platform, the film was able to raise $23,000 in 30 days.
Unlike other crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, Seed&Spark acts like a registry system, showing potential backers a budget determined by exactly what items are needed and at what cost. The platform also allows backers to purchase or donate specific items. Seed&Spark takes a 5% fee from successfully funded projects, lower than other crowdfunding platforms. [9]
As a distributor, Seed&Spark offers short films for 99¢, feature films for $2.99, and 80% of profits go to the filmmakers. The public site launched on December 1, 2012 [10] with 11 distributed films and 15 crowdfunding campaigns. The platform raised more than $300,000 in its first 6 months. [11] Originally based in Brooklyn, New York, [5] Seed&Spark relocated to Los Angeles in 2014.[ citation needed ]
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