This article was published on November 30, 2012

Cinemacraft lands new funding, led by 500 Startups, to ramp up its Videogram content platform


Cinemacraft lands new funding, led by 500 Startups, to ramp up its Videogram content platform

Cinemacraft has capped a very busy past month by announcing that it has closed a new round of seed funding, led by existing investor 500 Startups.

“The bridge round funding will be used to deploy pilots with publishers in US and Japan, hiring,  and to iterate on the product,” founder Sandeep Casi tells TNW. While the total value has not been disclosed, he says that it is a good size bridge round to Series A.

In case you missed it, the startup is relocating its Tokyo-based headquarters the US, pivoting its product offering and taking up a place on the latest 500 Startups intake, which starts this fall over in the US.

The new product, Videogram, is designed to make the humble video thumbnail work harder. It produces a thumbnail made up of automatically selected, eye-catching parts of the video it’s linked to. Users can then click any image to jump to that part of the video.

While Cinemacraft already has strong links with 500 — which was a lead investor in its previous $900,000 round — the new funding is extra to its incubation with the accelerator program. Casi says that an angel in Silicon Valley and two others in Japan have also put money in.

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The fresh capital will be used to deploy pilots in US and Japan, and to accelerate the release of native apps for iOS and Android, Casi explains. While the total value has not been disclosed, he says that “it is a good size bridge round to Series A.”

Cinemacraft has also updated Videogram to allow users to share specific frames from video clips to social network, for example allowing them to share a certain point within a video.

This feature is initially available for Mac and Windows browsers, but the company says it will be introduced for iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms next month. Here’s what it looks like.

Videogram was formerly focused on mobile streaming service for emerging markets, but its pivot has seen it zone in on video discovery and engagement.

➤ Videogram

Image via Silveiraneto / Flickr

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