Investors still backing video and music creators — looks like a bubble

Investors still backing video and music creators — looks like a bubble

Venture money continues to flow into video and music content creators, at prolific rates.

Today there’s news from London that a London investment group, Ingenious Media, has raised $79 million to invest in media deals, including to finance comeback albums from past-their-prime rock bands. (Last month, it signed UB40, a reggae band that had a No. 1 hit in 1988 with the song “Red Red Wine.” Picture of the band is at left, courtesy WSJ.) The… Continue Reading

Podtech takes on more debt — but must decide whether fish or fowl

Podtech takes on more debt — but must decide whether fish or fowl

updated

Plenty is being written about the woes of podcast company Podtech.

Now the company tells us it is taking on more debt, and will be making an announcement soon. This follows a recent $2 million round of fresh capital reported last week.

Podtech, a San Mateo, Calif. launched more than a year ago to create content that could be streamed to viewers, and planned to find advertising to insert inside of the content.

It was never clear… Continue Reading

The politics of Hollywood — National Banana, Film Department redux

The politics of Hollywood — National Banana, Film Department redux

This video-content sector is getting silly, not just because it’s overcrowded.

Last week, we wrote about National Banana, a somewhat mediocre Santa Monica-based video site, where Hollywood producer Jerry Zucker, creator of Airplane! and Naked Gun, is leading the company’s production. The company received $1 million from a Silicon Valley venture firm, U.S. Venture Partners.

We’ve since been informed of another connection. Turns out, Steve Krausz, who led the investment, is Zucker’s brother in law (Krausz’… Continue Reading

Two more video companies: National Banana, RockinCat

Two more video companies: National Banana, RockinCat

Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists continue to pump money into new video companies, even though there are hundreds, if not thousands, of video sites already out there.

The latest include National Banana, a site that produces serial comedy videos, and RockinCat, music videos from the Sunset Strip.

National Banana’s videos are produced by Hollywood’s Jerry Zucker, known for satirical movies “Airplane” and “Naked Gun.” Like Revision3, another video company, National Banana is bringing its comedy in episodes.

You might… Continue Reading