Culture Machine raises $18 mn in second round of funding
Funding led by Tiger Global with participation of Zodius Capital and Times Internet
Mumbai: Culture Machine Media Pvt. Ltd, a digital video networks company, said on Thursday that it has raised $18 million in a second round of funding.
The funding was led by Tiger Global with participation of Zodius Capital and Times Internet Ltd. The company had raised $3.5 million in an earlier round of funding from Zodius Capital in 2014.
“We are looking at using the funds to invest in strengthening the technology solution and creating content," said Sameer Pitalwalla, co-founder with the company, over the phone. The company creates video content related to comedy, music, beauty and news.
“Culture Machine Media has built a world-class technology platform and the largest creator network in the country. The company innovates digital content for a rapidly growing audience," said Lee Fixel, partner atTiger Global Management, in a statement.
The company was founded in 2013 by Pitalwalla and Venkat Prasad, former Walt Disney and YouTube Inc. employees. It has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Chennai and are looking at expanding to other cities as well. Over 1 million users have subscribed to the videos created by the company. Brand solutions, offering advertising space and subscriptions are the main revenue channels for the company.
The co-founders said in a statement that creating targeted content for global communities on a large scale is a challenge. The company is using its proprietary technology solutions to understand and create content at that scale. Digital video platforms are the next generation of distribution.
Indians watch close to five billion videos every month, Mint reported on 15 September. The report cited estimates from GroupM that stated that not only are more Indians watching videos online, the average time spent in watching online videos per user has grown substantially. There has been a 27% increase in online video audience in 2014 over 2013. An average viewer watched 68.7 videos for a total of 431.5 minutes per month this year, according to industry estimates.
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