Social video creation platform Wochit today announced receipt of $13M in funding, with investment from media giants ProSiebenSat.1 Digital, Singapore Press Holdings' SPH Media Fund, Carlo de Benedetti and several existing investors including Redpoint, Marker LLC and Cedar Fund. The funds will be used to further enhance Wochit's award-winning technology and to expand its business with publishers and content creators worldwide.
The investment from existing customers, each representing dozens of brands, is a testament to the strategic value of the Wochit platform, which supports rapid, cost-effective production of timely, socially-optimized video. By empowering storytellers with intelligently-applied automation and the largest library of pre-licensed assets, Wochit ensures quality results for publishers seeking a cost-effective video solution.
Commented Jens Doka, Chief Product Officer, ProSiebenSat.1 Digital, whose premier brands include ProSieben, Sat.1, Sixx and Kabel Eins, "The proliferation of content platforms has resulted in an incredible demand for video. With Wochit, ProSiebenSat.1 is able to produce video content at the scale needed to address this growing need, even providing tools to help deliver that content in the right format for each distribution channel."
Said investor and publisher Carlo de Benedetti, "I believe that a bright future for publishers and media companies is possible. We need to adapt our offerings to meet the wants and needs of audiences. Wochit is an invaluable company emphasizing video-based storytelling and giving publishers a powerful tool to turn an historically resource-intensive proposition into user-friendly, cost-effective one."
Says Wochit co-founder and CEO Dror Ginzberg, "I'm proud that such esteemed media organizations value the impact Wochit is having on the industry to a degree that they are taking a stake in our continued growth. We're confident that this investment will give us the ability to continue to drive results for our current partners and broaden our client base into new markets around the world."
The investment by SPH Media Fund, the corporate venture capital arm of Asia's leading media group, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), shows Wochit's growing presence in the Asian market. A Wochit customer, SPH is already engaging audiences with Wochit video across properties such as The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, The Business Times, AsiaOne and Stomp.
About Wochit
Wochit is a video creation platform that empowers newsrooms, media companies and brands to expand audience engagement through the power of social video. Worldwide media brands such as Time Inc., Daily News, USA Today, Gannett, AOL, The Week, ProSieben, Singapore Straits Times, Die Welt and Der Spiegeluse Wochit to produce short-form videos around trending topics at the scale and speed required in the video-first, mobile era. With rights-cleared assets from AP, Reuters, Getty, Bloomberg and others, cloud-based editing tools and native uploads, horizontal and vertical videos are quickly created and distributed across all social and digital platforms. Wochit is the winner of both the Gutenberg Prize for its disruptive technology in the field of journalism and Digiday's Best Video Technology Innovation for its significant impact on publishers' bottom line. The Company is backed by Redpoint Ventures, Marker LLC, Greycroft Partners, Cedar Fund, ProSieben, Singapore Press Holdings' SPH Media Fund and Carlo de Benedetti. Wochit is based in New York, with offices in London and Tel Aviv. Find out more at www.wochit.com.
