Mania TV adds $5M to their $17M in funding, bringing the total to $22M. Ripe TV remains “king of the hill” funding-wise with $32M… followed by Heavy.com’s $25M but I am not sure if they really fall in video creators anymore…
These amounts are just a “tad” more than the money we’ve invested in WatchMojo.com, of course. I reiterate that you are better off not being funded up the wazoo until you know what your business model will look like and it actually pans out. I’m not alone in thinking that, take it from a pro like Fred Wilson: the following is the most accurate thing I’ve ever read about why VC-backed firms fail (our commentary here and here).
Last year I predicted that VCs would finally get it right and start to fund content companies. Howard Lindzon rightfully (at the time) said I was wrong. I think my timing was off. It did not really happen in 2007 but it is certainly happening in 2008.
Mind you, some VCs have been funding content creators for some time now which is why some companies are behind the proverbial the 8-ball, playing catch-up and trying to align their business realities with the prospects and theory that led their initial funding rounds.
Regardless, you are seeing an acceleration of all of this in 2008, though it’s not always VCs alone; as talent agencies (ICM, CAA, WMA) and media heavyweights (Jon Miller, Ross Levinsohn, Terry Semel, etc.) and strategic investors (AT&T, etc.) are all getting in the act.
In fact, Mania TV was one of the first video content producers out there. They emailed me at my old gig looking for a biz dev opportunity and I was intrigued with the idea of producing video for the Web. This was in 2005: broadband users weren’t as prevalent as they are now, hosting costs were much higher. Most importantly, hyper-distribution was in its infancy. What is hyper-syndication:
- The Democratization of Content and the Commoditization of Distribution
- The Commoditization of Distribution and Scalability of Content
Ultimately, I’d love nothing more than seeing Ripe, Heavy and Mania TV have monster exits, but at those funding levels already - and with video advertising still in an embryonic stage (to grow from $1B in 2008 to $7.1B in next four years) - I fear that some of these companies will have a hard time finding buyers right now… especialy in the context of 2008 being the year of micro deals with new media firms.
Obviously that’s where the additional funding comes in: to take them to an exit. Invariably, some of these companies funds (be it from financing or operations) will also be spent on acquisitions: the IGN method of consolidating a space and then exiting at a much higher range (in IGN’s case, $650M to News Corp.).
Interestingly, Mania TV was one of the original sources of inspiration for WatchMojo.com in the context of made-for-web video programming (sans Dave Navarro et al., of course). In all honesty, last year I lost faith in them when they jumped on the UGC bandwa-bong but thankfully, they came to their senses and went back to their roots with original programming.
Anyway, combined with Generate’s $6M round, we’re updating our video funding table, below:
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