Social video networking platform Keek has anounced today the closure of a funding round worth $18 million, which will help the company to accelerate the release of new features, support more platforms and expand its infrastructure.
Pinetree Capital Ltd and Plazacorp Ventures led the round, although there was also significant participation from Cranson Capital. Following a similar round last September worth $7 million, this new batch of investment brings the firm’s total amount raised to $30 million.
Keek, which launched apps for both iOS and Android in March last year, claims that they are experiencing “explosive growth” in Europe, the Middle East and South America at the moment. Up to 200,000 new users are joining every day in these regions, helping it to avoid the downward trend experienced by other social video services.
The platform is unique because it focuses on very short, personal video uploads. An individual ‘keek’ can only run for 36 seconds or less, and is often uploaded directly from a smartphone camera or webcam. That means no editing, and certainly no post-production.
The content is therefore very different from what you would find on YouTube; gone are the music videos and highly polished vlogs shot on full-frame Digital SLR cameras, replaced instead by very raw, reactive snapshots. It’s essentially a video upload platform, but combined with the immediacy of a service like Twitter.
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To co-incide with the announcement, Keek has published the following statistics about its service:
- 1 billion monthly page views
- 75 million monthly visits
- 15 million monthly unique visitors
- 4 million monthly user-generated videos
- 30 million monthly “follows” and “subscribes”
- 8 million monthly comments and “likes”
Keek sees itself as a service that can supplement other social networks. It’s already been a hit with a few notable celebrities such as Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Adam Lambert and Kendall Jenner, who are most well known for their updates on Twitter and Instagram. They’re not the biggest names in Hollywood, but it’s possible they could give Keek the extra exposure needed to catapult into the public consciousness.
“Beyond best-in-class technology, consistent stellar growth and great user experience, the thing that impresses me most is the quality of the team and its ability to execute,” states Sheldon Inwentash, Chairman and CEO of Pinetree Capital Ltd. “Keek has emerged as the leading social video network and is well positioned to translate that into significant revenue streams.”
Image Credit: MAGAN CRANE/AFP/Getty Images
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