Video site Viki inks deals with Latin American broadcasters to make a big push into the region

Global video site Viki is making a big push into Latin America after it launched a dedicated Spanish site for the region and announced content deals with broadcasters TV networks Venevision in Venezuela and Caracol in Colombia.

The Singapore-headquartered startup provides films and TV show that are subtitled in up to 150 languages, enabling the content to be watched by audiences across the world — Korean dramas are popular worldwide, for example, Viki says.

The acquisition of new content from these two broadcasters sees it launch a new ‘Telenovela’ genre to showcase Latin America shows.

Viki says its number of viewers in Latin America has tripled over the last year and the region now accounts for one quarter of its monthly audience of “tens of millions”. Mexico stands out in particular, ranking as Viki’s four largest market based on traffic from mobile devices.

Aside from zooming in on Latin American content, which will be made available to Viki viewers worldwide, the company is beefing up the international content that is available for viewers the region. In particular, it is expanding its existing distribution partnership with Netflix to bring Asian TV shows with Spanish and Portuguese subtitles to Netflix customers in Latin America.

Viki also has a similar content sharing partnership with Hulu. Both streaming services borrow its subtitled content, which is wholly translated by the Viki community. To date, more than 350 million words of subtitles have been translated using that crowdsourced mode.

Tammy Nam, Viki CMO and General Manager for Americas, said in a statement:

“Our goal has always been to bring global TV to global audiences. More than 90 percent of our Latin American viewers come to Viki to watch top International TV shows and movies, which they can’t easily access elsewhere. Now, we’re able to introduce Telenovelas to much of the world.”

Viki has raised nearly $25 million to date from a range of investors that include Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock. It’s been particularly busy of late, after reintroducing an improved real-time commenting system, overhauling its website and inking deals with labels like Universal Music.

Last week, the company revealed that its mobile apps have now passed 10 million downloads across all platforms. That’s a near-seven-fold increase compared to the same period last year.

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