Venture Firm Forms with Entertainment AI Focus

H allstone Ventures , a Hollywood Hills-based venture capital firm, announced in mid-May that it closed its first fund, raising more than $10 million. With its inaugural fund, the firm plans to invest in artificial intelligence applications that support the backend of media and entertainment, like advertising, distribution and monetization. While much attention has been given to creative AI tools threatening to uproot screenwriters, video editors and voice actors, Hallstone Ventures is focusing on a niche that may very well be considered mundane to your average entertainment consumer. The firm is looking to invest in technology that includes applications that can understand and monetize attention, make better recommendations on streaming services, help content creators acutely understand what media performs well, and support virtual storytelling productions. For founder Seth Hallen , who spent more than 25 years working up and down the media and entertainment supply chain, that infrastructure is necessary to support the creative sector. “I spent most of my career in post-production and what I marveled at when I was a television producer was how much technology there is,” Hallen said. “It wasn’t until then I realized how you could really work with technology to unleash more human creativity.” Growth of generative AI Given the widening use of generative AI, the technology has quickly proliferated almost every industry including the entertainment world. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists conducted the union’s longest strike over AI between 2024 and 2025 over disagreements regarding how video game companies could use AI without threatening voice actors and motion capture artists. But according to SAG Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland , the union isn’t anti-technology. “We’ve been focused on AI for over a decade, but only in terms of the capability of generative AI tools to really create the kinds of outputs that are concerning to creative talent,” Crabtree-Ireland said. When Hallen founded Hallstone Ventures, he was a longtime media executive and consultant who worked at Sony Group Corp. , The Walt Disney Co. , and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences . Hallen had spent the last two decades experimenting with new technology in DVD and Blu-ray, streaming and machine learning before founding Hallstone Ventures. Behind Hallstone Ventures is a limited partner cast over 70 people who head up technology for large entertainment studios, lead media for tech companies, or steer media financing at big banks. Some of the fund’s investors include Andy Beach, former chief technology officer of Microsoft Corp. ’s media and entertainment division, and Leon Silverman , who previously worked at Netflix Inc. and Disney. “It’s really an entertainment industry fund that has been built by the industry for the industry for building the future of media and entertainment,” Hallen said.