Twitter video-sharing service nabs $6.5 million
Plans for Twitvid's new funding, led by Azure Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, include expanding the company's team, growing usage opportunities, and scaling infrastructure.
Twitvid, a popular video-sharing service on Twitter, is announcing today $6.5 million in a second funding round led by Azure Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Plans for the new funds include expanding the team, growing usage opportunities, and scaling the infrastructure.
Since launching in 2009, Twitvid has seen its service grow to 12 million monthly unique users, and more than 30 million unique video views per month. The company says it's growing its user base more than 100 percent year over year. Celebrity and sports fans include LeBron James, Justin Bieber, Al Gore, Tyra Banks, 50cent, and the New York Yankees.
"The amount of time people are spending on Web video is rising dramatically," said Cameron Lester, a general partner at Azure Capital. "The next several years the media opportunity in online video is up for grabs and it's a multibillion opportunity," added Lester, who will be joining Twitvid's board of directors.
When asked how Twitvid compares to other video-sharing sites like YouTube, Lester told CNET, "This is a fundamentally more social experience, and Twitvid's independence as a company allows them to work across multiple social-media platforms like Twitter and Facebook."
Twitvid runs mobile versions of its app on Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry. The service is designed to make it easy to upload and share both videos and photos from your computer or phone to Twitter and Facebook. Users don't need to register with Twitvid; just one sign-in works: a Twitter username and password.
Azure's Lester said he and his partners have been following Twitvid since the beginning of this year when the two founders were bootstrapping the company from their apartment. "With very limited resources, they emerged as the clear leader from a usage perspective," he said.
With more than $700 million under management, Azure Capital has a strong track record of early-stage technology investments. Azure sold Bill Me Later to eBay for $945 million, Tripit to Concur for up to $120 million, and World Wide Packets to Ciena for $290 million.