NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ForgeLight LLC, a holding company focused on investing in and operating companies in the media and consumer technology sectors, today announced the appointment of Michael Weissman as Partner, effective immediately. Mr. Weissman will help oversee the company’s second investment platform, which is expected to be announced soon.
With decades of experience driving transformational growth for media and technology companies, Mr. Weissman brings to ForgeLight deep operational expertise alongside a strong understanding of the consumer technology landscape. He joins ForgeLight from SoundCloud, a leading music entertainment company, where he most recently served as Chief Executive Officer and was responsible for the company’s turnaround, build out of a new leadership team and transformation into an artist-first streaming platform. During his tenure at SoundCloud, Mr. Weissman also held the roles of President and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining SoundCloud, he served in various executive leadership capacities at Vimeo, IAC and Viacom.
“I am excited to welcome Michael to the ForgeLight team,” said Wade Davis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ForgeLight. “With the Univision investment in 2020, we proved the value of our unique model. Our high conviction and concentrated investment strategy, combined with our Partners taking dedicated full-time executive roles to help drive execution of our investment vision as owner-operators, is working. Michael’s deep operational capabilities and transactional and investment experience make him a perfect match for our platform. The transformation that Michael drove at SoundCloud was extraordinary, and I am excited to be working with him again to build ForgeLight and our platform companies together.”
In 2020, ForgeLight and funds advised by Searchlight Capital Partners, L.P. (“Searchlight”) acquired a majority stake in Univision Holdings, Inc. (“Univision”), the leading Spanish language content company in the United States. ForgeLight helped lead a dramatic turnaround, with Wade Davis serving as Univision’s CEO. In 2021, ForgeLight, Searchlight and Grupo Televisa (“Grupo”) partnered in the merger of Univision with Grupo’s media and content businesses to form TelevisaUnivision (“TU”). TU is now the largest Spanish language media company in the world with market-leading businesses across television, movies, audio, live events and streaming, and has been one of the fastest growing major media companies in the world for the past two years. Building on this success, ForgeLight plans to announce its second investment platform in the second quarter of 2023.
“I have known Wade as a colleague, friend and mentor for many years, and I am thrilled to be joining him to help grow ForgeLight,” said Mr. Weissman. “The firm’s thesis of concentrated investments with dedicated operational support to drive transformational change fits my skillset perfectly, and I look forward to helping lead ForgeLight’s second investment platform while pioneering its next chapter.”
About ForgeLight
ForgeLight is a holding company with operations in media, consumer technology and financial services, founded in 2019 by Wade Davis.
