Corrected: Dailymotion Confirms €17 Million VC Round
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Correction: As the company and Atlas’ Fred Destin have pointed out to us (see his comment below), this is not a new funding round, as we originally reported, but a confirmation of the funding earlier this month, with an update on the price and who is was involved.
SEE ALSO: Europe Round-Up: Russia’s Microsoft Probe; Dailymotion Stats; Deutsche Telekom IPTV; Fremantle CEO
Original: Exactly two weeks after raising €15 million ($25.5 million) in VC funds, French video site Dailymotion on Thursday confirmed it raised a VC round earlier this month worth €17 million ($25.5 million). Existing investors Advent Venture Partners, AGF PE, Partech International and Atlas Ventures all took part and €7.5 million is contributed by Fonds Strategique d’investissement (FSI), which is 49 percent owned by the French state and now joins the Dailymotion board.
According to its release (pdf, in French), FSI invested partly because the business is “on the threshold of profitability”. The site has attracts 60 million unique monthly users and has raised more than $90 million since 2006. What’s the money going to be spent on? Dailymotion says in the release it fund the movement into new areas such as mobile and IPTV Dailymotion has not responded to our request for comment so far.
Atlas Ventures’ Fred Destin confirms the round on his blog, adding that Atlas grows its stake in the business as a result. “As for most video-sharing sites it’s been a rollercoaster four years of hypergrowth, legal woes, scaling challenges peppered with some great moments of exhilaration,” he writes. “The segment remains challenging, not least because your main competitor is…Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and its monstrously successful video acquisition.”
Destin says he’s not “declaring victory yet” and admits the site is “fallen behind in some areas” such as search and the MotionMaker UGC programme, which is “due an upgrade. But nevertheless he says DM is sustainable and he’s happy to back it. For him the real challenge (and he’s not kidding) is proving that the business is worth half a billion: “Clearly we are not there yet!”
It’s quite a turnaround in growth strategy: one year ago former CEO Mark Zaleski told us that the site didn’t need any new money—yet since then it’s further cemented its position as one of the most heavily VC-funded content business in Europe.
Update: It appears the cost-cutting drive DM CEO Cedric Tournay has implemented is not entirely over: the company confirmed to us that UK country manager Digby Lewis has left the company as part of a drive to cut costs by 20 percent.
His own MotionMaker page describes him as: “Former Dailymotion UK Country Manager. Now running a digital media consultancy business.” According to his LinkedIn page, he’s been head of digital at the Universal Music JV Alltheworlds, which runs events including F1 Rocks.
Posted In: Media & Publishing, TV, VOD, Companies, Dailymotion, Countries, Europe, France
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