Updated
Investors have poured $30 million more into video site Metacafe, the popular online video site.
This is a significant amount of money for a company that already raised $15 million. But the support may be necessary if Metacafe is to stay among the front-runners. It is the seventh most popular video site, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, behind companies with many more resources, such as Google’s YouTube and the video sites of other giants such as Yahoo, MSN and MySpace. (Update: Hitwise, meanwhile puts Metacafe in eighth place. See below)
YouTube used only $11.5 million in venture backing, before it was bought by Google for $1.6 billion.
The round was led by new investors Highland Capital Partners and DAG Ventures. Existing backers Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital also contributed to the round, first by VentureWire today (subscription only).
[Update: We just talked with chief exec Erick Hachenburg. He says Metacafe is arguably the largest independent video site. While Veoh rivals Metacafe on some metrics, Veoh doesn't focus as much on short-form video. Metacafe's traffic has doubled in the U.S. so far this year, to more than 6 million uniques a month, from 3 million, Hachenburg notes. Globally, uniques climbed to 26 million from 17 million.]
[Update II: The company wouldn't comment on valuation, but says it is higher than when the company raised its previous round.]
The Tel Aviv, Israeli company moved its headquarters to Palo Alto, Calif. last year to partake of Silicon Valley’s technology savvy.
We wrote about Metacafe here, explaining how it filters videos before they hit the front page. It relies on a technology called “video rank,” which watches how users interact with a video for signs suggesting popularity (for example, if they watch it several times). It also relies on a community of a 100,000 review panelists to provide a thumbs-up on a popular video.
Several months ago, there were rumors that the company was selling itself. The company’s founder Arik Czerniak stepped aside earlier this year.
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3 Comments
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azeitona said:
Correction: the largest independent video-sharing website is by far Dailymotion.com in US and in the world if we trust Nielsen/NetRatings and Alexa.
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selfmademadman said:
What! $30Million for porn?! Metacafe, Veoh, Break buy their traffic from porn sites. Do a traffic source loss for any of them and their number one source of traffic ahead of even Google is porn. Coincidence? Not in the least! These sites pay for it (pun intended) by using traffic buying aggregators, many of whom pop up Break, Meta, Veoh on your computer, to pump up their traffic numbers and pull the wool over the VC community’s eyes. The only thing that matters is revenue and none of these sites has more than $5MM coming in this year.
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Daniel Cohen said:
This round is a great validation of the Israeli Internet scene. Check this post: http://coheda.typepad.com/israel/2007/08/metacafe-the-ne.html
10 Trackbacks
7:19 am
NewTeeVee Metacafe Raises $30M In Fresh VC Cash « said:
[...] video sites that competes with the likes of YouTube, has raised $30 million in new funding, according to Venture Wire (via VentureBeat.) Highland Capital Partners and DAG Ventures led the round. Previous investors Accel Partners and [...]
10:00 am
The Tech 10: Wal-Mart Goes DRM-Free, MTV and RealNetworks Confront iTunes and a ‘Moviestar’ Is Born at Adobe | Digital Daily | John Paczkowski | AllThingsD said:
[...] popular online video site Metacafe got a shot in the arm in the form of $30 million in financing. VentureBeat reports that the latest infusion was led by Highland Capital Partners and DAG [...]
8:57 pm
Venture Capital: Funding an also-ran startup is expensive. … » TechAddress said:
[...] Funding an also-ran startup is expensive. Online-video site Metacafe just raised $30 million, bringing its total to $50 million; YouTube, by contrast, only required $11.5 million in venture capital before selling to Google for $1.65 billion. [VentureBeat] [...]
6:35 pm
YouTube zavedlo InVideo reklamy, Metacafe získalo dalších 30 M $ said:
[...] 6 milionů unikátních návštěvníků měsíčně (globálně 26 milionů z 17 mil.). Zdroj: VentureBeat Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, Capital Partners, DAG Ventures, Google, InVideo, IPTV / video, [...]
8:08 pm
VentureBeat » Dailymotion raises $34 million to stay also-running said:
[...] distant competitors to YouTube have also raised large amounts of funding recently. Metacafe raised $30 million last week, Veoh raised $26 million in June. One might call these sites also-ran’s compared to [...]
11:07 pm
VentureBeat » Strike this: Video sites you can make money from (or not) said:
[...] (our coverage): It offer a very straight-forward content producer payout plan via its Producer Rewards program [...]
9:12 am
Veoh is raising a round, claims to be pretty big and growing » VentureBeat said:
[...] Two examples: Last year, DailyMotion raised $30 (our coverage) and MetaCafe raised $34 million (our coverage). Hosting and streaming lots of videos gets expensive, and right now there’s no way to cover [...]
9:09 am
Metacafe Founders Ditch, Reportedly Cash Out Their Shares For $5 Million said:
[...] on an earlier valuation of $50 million. The company has raised more than $45 million so far, with a $30 million round as recently as last August. And back in late 2006 it unsuccessfully tried to shop itself around for [...]
11:31 am
TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » ファウンダー2人がMetacafe辞任、「持ち株を計$5Mで売却」とイスラエル紙 said:
[...] Both CzerniakとAdlerの持ち株は2人分合わせても全会社株のたった5%に過ぎない。ベスティングは全額行い、受取額は$50M（5000万ドル）のアーリーバリュエーションを基に各々$2.5M（250万ドル）となった。同社がこれまでに調達した総額は$45M（4500万ドル）で、昨年8月にも$30M（3000万ドル）の資金調達ラウンドを完了している。2006年後半には$200M～$300M（2～3億ドル）前後で売却を試み失敗に終わっている。上の記事ではHachenburg（現CEO）および会社の戦略方向性と対立があった点に触れているが、きっといくら待っても誰もこの会社を買うことはない、と見切りをつけただけなのかもしれない。 [...]
6:36 pm
www.ubraniaroxy.pl » Blog Archive » Metacafe Founders Ditch, Reportedly Cash Out Their Shares For $5 Million said:
[...] on an earlier valuation of $50 million. The company has raised more than $45 million so far, with a $30 million round as recently as last August. And back in late 2006 it unsuccessfully tried to shop itself around for [...]