Naomi Osaka ROBERT PRANGE/GETTY IMAGES. The tennis star launched the production company in 2022.
CAA has signed Hana Kuma, the media and production company founded by tennis star Naomi Osaka and her longtime agent and business partner Stuart Duguid, for representation, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The company launched in 2022 in partnership with The SpringHill Company, the media venture from NBA star LeBron James and Maverick Carter, and spun out on its own last year in conjunction with a $5 million seed round that included SpringHill, Epic Games, Japanese conglomerate Kinoshita Group and Fenway Sports Group.
Hana Kuma launched with a number of projects, including the New York Times op-doc Mink!, from director Ben Proudfoot, about Patsy Mink, the first woman of color elected to Congress, and the author and sponsor of Title IX, which prohibited sex-based discrimination in schools that receive government funding; as well as Footsteps, a Bloomberg original about the Haitian Woman’s World Cup team.
The company also produces the video podcast Good Trouble With Nick Kyrgios.
It also has full slate of upcoming projects in scripted and unscripted TV, anime, manga, publishing, feature films, fashion, sports and culture, podcasts and digital.
Hana Kuma (it translates to “flower bear” in Japanese) is inspired by Osaka’s Haitian, Japanese and American upbringing, and is focused on producing authentic, diverse stories.
“We’re having the opportunity to tell you stories that I haven’t necessarily seen before, and I think that’s what kind of drew me to it,” Osaka told THR in an interview tied to the spin-out last year. “I come from Japan and Haiti and of course America too, and I have a very different heritage and upbringing than a lot of different people. And I know that there are a lot of other people that are like me, and just trying to utilize that. I’m just telling the stories that I think are interesting, and I think that people would want to hear, like Mink!, which is also really educational.”
Naomi Osaka continues to be represented by Evolve, the talent agency she co-founded with Duguid.
