Singapore video publishing startup bags $4.5m from Kickstart Ventures, others

Singapore-headquartered video publishing platform iVideoSmart (IVS) has raised US$4.5 million in a series A+ round led by Philippine venture capital firm Kickstart Ventures. This brings the startup’s total funding to US$8 million.

Taiwan-based Darwin Venture, Singapore’s SGInnovate, as well as returning investors Monk’s Hill Ventures and EE Capital, also participated in the round.

The team at iVideoSmart / Photo credit: iVideoSmart

IVS offers solutions to increase monetization and engagement for content producers, brands, and advertisers. It uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to match users with relevant videos. It also offers a solution called HotSpot, which allows programmatic “direct from video to ecommerce affiliate conversion.”

Founded in 2016, IVS has garnered over 150 million video views on 500 million pages. It claims to reach over 85 million unique users across five countries, namely Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

IVS chief business officer Vinchi Cuyegkeng tells Tech in Asia that they’ve had a “quantum leap” in growth in the past few months. To compare, the startup only had 70 million page views, 40 million video views, and reached 28 million unique users in August 2018.

According to Cuyegkeng, the new cash infusion will go into beefing up the startup’s business and account management teams and increasing its market reach in Taiwan and the Philippines. IVS is also looking to expand to Thailand, which is the “largest video viewing market online in Southeast Asia,” says Cuyegkeng.