07/03/2006
Video sharing community site MetaCafe raised $15 million from Benchmark and Excel Partners
Free video sharing portal, MetaCafe, has completed a second financing round, raising $15 million from Benchmark Capital and Excel Partners. The Israeli Web 2.0 video entertainment firm raised $4 million from Benchmark Capital and private investors in its first financial round.
Metacafe, that competes with two largest video sharing websites, YouTube and Google Video, serves over 280 million videos or Media Snacks a month. Established in 2003, Metacafe currently employs more than 50 people with plans to add an additional 20 workers.
In April 2006, YouTube has received $8M in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital. Founded in February 2005, The Company completed an initial $3.5 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital in November 2005. YouTube currently delivers more than 40 million video views every day with 35,000 new videos uploaded daily.
In May 2006, Vpod.tv, a Paris and Madrid based online video sharing site, has received $5.1 million in funding fron the French VC firm Innovacom and Jazztel founder Martin Varsavsky. Besides features simialr to what other video sharing sites have, Vpod includes the ability to integrate advertising in videos, a wide variety of output/device formats, and editing tools. Also, the service seems to have a more editorial focus in terms of videos on the site.
The venture capital rush to invest in online video sharing sites is based on the growing advertising spending on internet video. According to the Online Video Advertising report from eMarketer, advertisers will be spending at least $1.5 billion for online video ads by the end of the decade. eMarketer predicts that internet video has the potential to blend several hot marketing elements: paid search, branded entertainment, viral marketing, consumer generated media, behavioral targeting, website site brand marketing and online gaming.
Last month NBC and YouTube announced a strategic partnership that will combine NBC's quality programming with YouTube's vast audience to enhance the entertainment experience on YouTube while engaging viewers in innovative new ways to promote NBC's Fall program lineup and other preferred shows over the next year.
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22:20 Posted in Video Sharing | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: video sharing, Web 2.0, MetaCafe, Google, YouTube, Benchmark Capital, Excel Partners
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