Social video creation platform Wochit today announced receipt of $13M in funding, with investment from media giants ProSieben, 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.
Jens Doka, Chief Product Officer, ProSiebenSat1 Digital, whose premier brands include ProSieben, Sat.1, Sixx and Kabel Eins commented “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.”
“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 emphasising video-based storytelling and giving publishers a powerful tool to make an historically resource intensive proposition into a user-friendly, cost-effective one.” Said investor and publisher Carlo de Benedetti.
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.