Israeli startup Wochit has closed an $11 million investment round, led by Yuval Shachar and Ohad Finkelstein’s Marker LLC. Existing investors Cedar Fund, Greycroft Partners, and Redpoint Ventures participated in the round as well.
Wochit allows content providers to create short, nearly-automated video news items, at no cost to the websites themselves. The idea is to monitor hot news items online and to use content agreements with third parties, such as Getty Images and Reuters, to sample photos and video clips, and to incorporate them into the news videos. Voiceovers are recorded by dozens of workers employed remotely by Wochit, who provide around-the-clock service in various languages.
Wochit was founded in 2012 by CEO Dror Ginzberg and CTO Ran Oz, and has clients ranging from major newspapers and magazines, across new media and brands. Wochit intends to use the funds raised in order to expand its business and draw more customers, and, ultimately, to offer its video service to the greater public. To date, the company has raised $16 million. The company, which has offices in Tel Aviv and in New York, intends to hire more developers.
“Today, brands and traditional publishers are struggling with ways to bring the power of video to their content,” said MarkerLLC partner Rick Scanlon. “Offering a truly unique solution in the marketplace, Wochit disrupts the expensive and time-consuming video production industry by providing a video creation platform that enables their clients to tell their own stories in studio quality video within minutes.”
Wochit was recently named a finalist in Digiday’s Publishing Awards for Most Disruptive Technology and the winner of the Gutenberg Prize, as a part of the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, for its disruptive technology in the field of journalism.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 12, 2014
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