VuClip has raised $8 million in a third round of funding so that it can deliver videos to all sorts of mobile devices.
VuClip says it is the world’s largest mobile video service, serving 2 billion video views across 5,400 different mobile device types. The Milpitas, Calif.-based company’s core skill is transcoding video, or creating software programs that convert video from one format to another. VuClip says it took 31 months to serve its first billion videos and only eight months to reach the second billion. Overall, VuClip delivers 10 million videos a day to users in more than 200 countries. Pretty good for a service that most Americans have never heard of.
The growth driver is that video sharing continues to explode among mobile users, as people share all sorts of content with their friends. VuClip’s service does particularly well in places where the mobile screen is often the only one that users have to watch video. Cisco predicts that mobile video will grow 26-fold from 2010 to 2015.
The funding came from New Enterprise Associates and Jafco Ventures. VuClip will use the money to fuel its worldwide growth and augment its regional teams. VuClip says it is the largest mobile video provider in markets such as India, Indonesia and Malaysia. It is also very popular in Mexico and Venezuela.
?We?ve spent the last few years cracking the code on delivering entertainment to 5,400 mobile devices in 200 countries,? says VuClip chief executive Nickhil Jakatdar (pictured right). ?We?re seeing a true phenomenon in aggressive viral growth driven by sharing of compelling local video content.?
VuClip provides a browser-based solution that uses HTML5 (a new standard for web multimedia). The company secures exclusive local content in major international markets, and that has prompted major mobile carriers to distribute VuClip directly to consumers. Its distribution partners include Bharti Airtel, DoCoMo and Vodafone (India), Maxis (Malaysia), Telkomsel and XL. VuClip also has content relationships with premium content providers including the Associated Press (AP), Billboard, Falcon Interactive, and Times of India. Carriers like VuClip because it provides the smallest video size for a given video quality, VuClip says. That saves consumers from high data charges and alleviates carrier network overloads.
VuClip was founded in 2007 and has more than 50 employees. Rivals include Apalya in Asia and YouTube. To date, the company has raised $22.1 million from Jafco and NEA. Jakatdar and Zhigang Chen (pictured left) co-founded the company.
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