Vemba Raises $5M Series A Led by Upfront, Bertelsmann

6/28/16

Toronto-based Vemba today announced that it has raised $5 million in series A funding from Upfront Ventures and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI), with participation from the Enterprise Fund at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The funding will be used to expand the company's rapidly growing video distribution and content discovery platform.

Global demand for high quality desktop and mobile video content has dramatically increased with an estimated 1.5B unique digital video viewers in 2015, a number expected to grow more than 50% by 2018. As a result, content publishers are increasingly under pressure to effectively enhance their video engagement and monetization.

Vemba has distinguished itself in the video distribution market as a uniquely publisher-focused platform, enabling content publishers to directly control all components of video distribution, ingestion and monetization. Content from Vemba's discoverable video marketplace works with any video player technology, and offers real time video analytics in a player-agnostic way.

"Despite the huge public appetite for video, there has been no effective mechanism for content owners to distribute video without significant technology or monetization trade offs" said Garrick Tiplady, CEO. "We built Vemba with publishers in mind. At every step, we have simplified distribution, discovery and reporting.

Since the launch of the platform in 2015, Vemba has achieved impressive traction, having partnered with over 85 leading media company partners, including VICE, Condé Nast and Tribune.

Vemba allows video producers to intelligently scale their distribution, with a single platform to effectively manage where content is allowed to be placed, how it can be monetized, and how it is used. Producers can use Vemba to manage their direct syndication deals with other publishers, or distribute to a wide network of publishers without relinquishing control over content usage and monetization.

"The Vemba team is making video publishing vastly more manageable for both publisher and producers," said Mark Suster, Managing Partner of Upfront Ventures. "When a young company achieves marketplace scale so quickly, with such high quality partners, it's a true validation of their business."

"Many companies have tried to connect video creators and publishers only to end up looking like a traditional ad network, which is a challenging business model long term," said Sim Blaustein, Partner at BDMI. "Vemba is the first company we've seen that has solved the hard technical challenges needed to build an enterprise solution for premium content owners and publishers."

Vemba will use the funding to further enhance its offering to publishers and producers, with planned product rollouts of additional social platforms, OTT technology and streaming video. The company also plans to expand its offices in Toronto, Los Angeles and New York City.

About Vemba

Vemba is a next generation video platform for premium publishers. The platform facilitates the distribution, discovery and monetization of video content with full control and transparency. With offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Vemba is powering video distribution for the world's leading media companies. To learn more, visit www.vemba.com.

About Upfront Ventures
Upfront Ventures is the largest and longest-serving venture capital fund in Los Angeles, CA, having invested more than $1 billionsince 1996 in companies such as Maker Studios, TrueCar and Overture.

About Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI)

Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the global media, services and education company Bertelsmann. BDMI has invested in over 50 startups since 2007 and is currently focused on the categories of online video, ad tech, SaaS, content and e-commerce.

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