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Japan : ONLINE-Video Startup DramaFever purchased by SoftBank [TendersInfo (India)](TendersInfo (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Japan s SoftBank Group said that it will acquire DramaFever, an Internet video-on-demand player that specializes in international TV shows and movies. Conditions of the deal were not revealed. New York-based DramaFever founded in 2009has raised $12 million to date from its investors including AMC Networks, Bertelsmann, MK Capital, SoftBank Ventures, NALA Investments and YouTube co-founder Steve Chen. The company s board comprises founders Seung Bak and Suk Park, along with Ross Levinsohn the former CEO of Yahoo and Guggenheim Digital Media and Bret Maxwell, managing general partner of MK Capital. Deal comes after SoftBank made a $250 million investment in Legendary Entertainment earlier this month, in a pact that could be worth up to $1 billion. The telecommunications and Internet conglomerate also had been in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation for some $3.4 billion. Nikesh Arora, vice chairman of SoftBank and CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media, said in announcing the dea, In five short years since going live, DramaFever has built an impressive Internet-based streaming video business operating at scale . Seung Bak and Suk Park have a proven business model in a dynamic industry, and we look forward to helping them bring their highly popular video content to an even larger global audience. DramaFever offers content from above 70 major broadcasters and studios all over Asia, Europe and the Americas, with a lineup of 15,000 episodes from 700 shows available either on a first-run, same-day or next-day basis from the original broadcast. An advertising-free subscription plan is $9.99 per month. DramaFever also syndicates a portion of its library to Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and iTunes, with an overall reach of above 20 million unique monthly viewers. As per to DramaFever, most of its viewers are women 18-24. Approximately 40% of the site s users are white, 30% are Hispanic, 15% are black and 15% are Asian. Paying subscribers to the service watch an average of 53.9 hours per month on DramaFever above Netflix. Morrison & Foerster LLP acted as legal adviser to the SoftBank Group. The Raine Group LLC acted as financial adviser and Gunderson Dettmer acted as legal adviser to DramaFever. (c) 2014 Euclid Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |