Meet the Team
Financiers with Vision.
About Talon
Creative financial solutions across the entertainment industry.
We provide bespoke equity and debt capital across the entire spectrum of the entertainment industry. From film equity and debt to LED Volumes and the top-to-bottom construction of virtual production studios, our team strives to fund your imagination.
Leadership Team
A team built to design financial solutions that allow creatives to focus on being creative.
Decades of experience in finance (private equity, bulge bracket banks), physical production (Saturday Night Live), and producing (Bookworm, Spider & Jessie) combine to yield a perspective and flexibility of approach that few other teams are able to offer.
Andres Rätsepp — Chairman
Andres’ background is in investment banking. He has managed and arranged several of the largest IPO-s in the Baltic market and raised equity capital for local companies. Since 2000 Andres Rätsepp has been active private equity investor in Baltic market. Through his investment company – Sarto Capital, he has acquired substantial holdings in energy, production, tourism, real estate, entertainment and biomass assets.
He has been serving/is serving as a board/council member of his Portfolio companies. He has advised and structured several M&A transactions in that significantly increased the value of his portfolio companies. He holds a diploma in Finance from Tartu University, Estonia and MSc. degree in Global Finance from NYU Stern and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has also studied in Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden and in INSEAD in France.
Steven Demmler — President
Steven Demmler is a writer/producer, Founder of Talon Entertainment, and one of Variety’s “New Leaders in Hollywood” for 2024. He has Produced or Executive Produced projects such as Paul Schrader’s OH, CANADA, which was in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, and the Ant-Timpson directed and Elijah Wood-starring BOOKWORM, which most recently opened and won the Audience Award at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
Under Demmler’s leadership, Talon acquired South Side Studios, an 11-acre film studio and sound stage facility in Dallas, TX, which will re-open its refurbished gates in January 2025. Demmler also is a founding partner of MUTANT, a pop culture-centric art and collectible venture, alongside Mondo founder Tim League and Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah.
Additionally, Demmler is a strategic advisor and member of the board of directors for Elijah and Noah’s SpectreVision, a genre driven production company with a focus on psychological thriller and horror films.
Demmler has an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU Tisch and an MSc in Global Finance from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His writing is represented by 3 Arts Entertainment and his producing is repped by WME.
Tony Armer — Head of Physical Production
Tony is the Film Commissioner and Director of Creative Industries for Dallas, TX. From 2014-2022 he was the Film Commissioner for St. Petersburg Clearwater, Florida. He is the Co-Founder of Film USA, a National non-profit organization and the first National Association of United States Film Commissions in the Country. While in St. Pete Clearwater he led the film commission to the most productive period in its 30-year history, breaking records for revenues and every other performance metric. St. Petersburg Clearwater was named one of the Top 25 Best Places to Live and Work as a MovieMaker by MovieMaker Magazine in 2021 and 2022.
He is an Award Winning Filmmaker and the Founder of the internationally acclaimed Sunscreen Film Festival. He works with hundreds of productions each year, from large studio projects to small independent films.
Tony works closely with film distributors and sales agents attending markets like Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, AFM and more. He has deep and longstanding relationships within the film industry. He has been Producing, Directing, Writing, and creating Film, TV, corporate and digital media content since 1997.
Raymond Brandte — Chief Financial Officer
Raymond is the newest addition to the Talon team as our Chief Financial Officer. He is a Certified Public Accountant with over a decade of experience in the accounting field. He specializes in financial analysis, forecasting, inventory management, cash flow management, receivables and payables.
Prior to joining Talon Raymond spent his first few years in the accounting field as a Senior Audit Associate for Grant Thornton, LLP. From there he worked for Sinkholemag.com as their Cofounder and Business Manager before starting his own firm Arcadius Group LLC. There he assisted small business owners in growing and managing their companies. Most recently he was the Controller for Driver’s Alert LLC where he was directly responsible for all accounting related functions and financial reporting requirements as well as Head of HR.
Raymond is a member of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and attended the University of Florida for both his Undergraduate and Masters degrees in Accounting. Go Gators!
