SERIES MANIA: A Luxembourg-based production group is set to launch an investment fund for European scripted series with budgets of up to €15m (US$16.1m).

Thomas Saignes, head of international business affairs at Iris Group, said the production and distribution company was on the lookout for projects with medium-sized budgets to invest in.

The group has primarily focused on feature films since being founded in 1986. However, it recently coproduced the German financial thriller Bad Banks, which France’s Federation Entertainment launched ^[1] at MipTV earlier this month.

The Iris fund is between €15m and €25m, which Saignes admitted was dwarfed by some other investment pots focusing on drama that have been set up in the past year to cater to continued demand for high-end scripted series.

These include initiatives set up by Barclays bank ^[2], BBC Worldwide ^[3], and Lookout Point’s tie-up ^[4] with Danny Cohen’s Access Entertainment.

Earlier this month C21 revealed ^[5] London-based financier Stone Story Media was in talks with a number of European and global media companies about an initiative that would allow institutional investors to put up to US$1bn into slates of content.

“We’re not looking at €200m or €1bn like some of the funds that were announced recently,” said Saignes, who added that the company’s expertise in European production meant it wouldn’t be looking at shows originating from outside Europe.

“Our core business is European coproductions. That’s what we know how to do. We know which tax schemes to use, which countries to produce with; it’s our forte,” said Saignes.

“I was very interested in the number of productions pitched here that were north of €25m, but at the moment this is not the type of project we can work with.”

The majority of the 16 projects presented during Series Mania’s pitching competition ^[6] yesterday had budgets below €25m, with the average budget being €11.4m.

Managed by founder and CEO Nicolas Steil, the Iris Group has branches in Luxembourg (Iris Productions), France (Drimage), Germany (Iris Productions Deutschland), Belgium (Iris Films) and the UK (Iris UK). Its sales arm, Rezo Films, is led by Jean-Michel Rey and is based in France.

Iris Productions and Iris Films are currently shooting an eight-part docuseries titled Clash of Futures alongside Looks Film & TV in Germany, Les Films d’Ici in France and Arte France.

The series tells the personal stories of 14 people from different European countries during the 1920s in the period between the two World Wars.