As readers know, the venture dollars are flying thick and fast into the online video space. Today, Veoh Networks, announced that it had raised $12.5 million in a Series B venture capital financing from Michael Eisner, former chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Todd Dagres, managing partner of Spark Capital, and Time Warner. Previous investor in the company, Shelter Capital Partners also participated in this round of financing. (The New York Times has details on Michael Eisner’s new investment company, Tornante, and life after Disney.)
We had heard rumors of this funding couple of weeks ago, though could not lock down the names of the investors. Dmitry Shapiro, chief executive of the company says that the new money will be used to scale the business, hire more people and increase the marketing message. He would have to focus on marketing especially since the market is getting a tad crowded. Also, he would have to work hard to get over the damage done to it reputation by its recent fracas with the video blogging community.
Update: Erick has more details on the funding at Business 2 Blog
Here is a short list of some of the recent online video fundings:
* Veoh raised $12.5 million to bring the total to $14.75 million
* You Tube raised $8 million to bring the total to $11.5 million.
* Revver raised $8.7 million in a recent round.
So Youtube, which is clearly kicking Veoh’s butt, and not going away any time soon, has raised less money?
Which begs the question, why would Eisner and company invest in Veoh? They don’t have EVEN CLOSE to the amount of traffic Youtube has… Do they believe they can compete with Youtube?
Yeah, that is weird. I’d think YouTube would probably raise another round pretty soon, with their bandwidth costs and all.
I think it makes more competitive sense to raise less money as far as keeping control, focus and ownership of one’s business.
All these companies are going to need a lot of money to scale up and market themselves to the consumers. I am not sure how many of these will survive but man it is going to be a very very expensive business to be in.
But not nearly as expensive as launching a new traditional media company in a space dominated by a handful of 800 ton dinosaurs.
Wasn’t that the rationale in the priot dot.com period: Raise a lot of capital and scale up quickly. That method often failed. I wonder how much google raised in relation to Webvan?
Veoh’s site looks pretty good, and it seems to run well, too. I can see using the money for marketing the site, but hiring more people seems like it might be just a waste of money. I think there’s too much emphasis on hiring people when VC’s come on board. Just my opinion.
good point enric. i think this is the same path many of the companies are going to take. the funny thing is no one is talking exit. since google video is already out there, not a chance for an exit there.
that leaves yahoo and microsoft. okay throw in aol and ask.com. but given that there are 100 of these companies, there is a good chance 96 will flame out, and four will be sold, and that is the best case scenario.
yikes… right!
My gut on YouTube is they raised less money so they could keep more equity with the founders, or they weren’t getting the valuation they wanted. This is my mind at least would point to a relatively short term exist strategy as they don’t seem to be socking away money to build for the long haul.
A company that is doing well may not want to raise too much capital, this way they can keep more equity. Maybe subdebt would be better, especially if they don’t have a high burn rate? I hope someone with real business experience will correct me if I am wrong.
I was thinking it would make sense for MTV to enter into a strategic partnership with one of these sites (YouTube is the only one I am familiar with). MTV gets a lot of static for not having enough music video programming. If they put all the videos on the web with a good UI, they would probably get less complaints and more revenue. And given that music videos are promotional materials anyway, I can’t see recording studios complaining (okay, I can, they can be braindead sometimes).
Thanks,
Jacob
In my opinion, more than one company can survive in this space for a while. Eventually, they will be bought out by established media companies (in a year or two).
Veoh and YouTube are similar, but they have different strategies. Veoh is much more focused on getting content to the device and providing a peered distribution platform for high quality video delivery in the future. Unfortunately for Veoh, right now they just come off as a YouTube clone.
I haven’t heard one person in this post say …”this one has a great business model”. Is there one ?
cheers
scott
Business model? AWOL. But their technical execution is the best.
And Veoh is still stealing content hand over foot, and not just from bloggers. Or did I miss something? Eg:
http://tinyurl.com/g22vw
Phone David Lynch!
Your pal,
Anonymo
First let me say, “I like VEOH!”
Now, from reading these post, I ask you, “Which of you have an investment in the competitor’s products?” I ask this because it seems as if some of you wish VEOH to fail. (As if you are afraid it may cut into your Stock prices!) As for similarities, there minuet! YouTube does not allow you to burn, Others do not let you post your own video’s, and most are not FREE! So, before you try to change the opinion of others, and influence then to try the competitors products, ask your self; “Are these people really stupid?”
VEOH is new, young by all standards, It is offering something no other will, the ability to MAKE your own publications, with the potential to make money! (Get YouTube to do that!) So stop boasting your intellectual camaraderie’s, and SMELL THE COFFEE! This new baby is going to make billions!
As soon as they (or any one,) offer LIVE channel viewing, recording, and selection such as SIFI, TNT, USA, Oh, (and so many other,) to replace my “Cable TV” here is one customer who is going to step up to the plate, and get seconds!
Wow, daddywarbucks is right. VEOH offers things no other company does. I’m an everyday user for online movies and vidoes. Over the last couple of months, I found myself on VEOH most of the time. YouTube is based around clips and little flash vidoes. I haven’t found a good clip or movie on YouTube in over a 3 months.
For example, I was watching Rambo on YouTube and it was split into 6 different segments (downloads). I went to VEOH and found in all in one segment with better quality and it didn’t skip at all. This is the case for most of the movies.
VEOH is a rising leader in online movies and will end-up as one of the leaders DOT.COM movie companys. I’m going to invest my money in this company and watch is triple. (check the sight out)
P.S. Michael Eisner is a smart investor and make billions off millions. He has help some of the largest company’s in the world go big and stay big. If he is willing to dump 12.5 million into this company with no problem. He must have done some research into this idea. So I think i’
m going to invest in it.
Plus, I like VEOH as a everyday user.
Yeah, just one thing… it is illegal to post these movies!