MUMBAI: TinselVision, a Tinsel Cinema broadband Internet, video-on-demand (VoD) service delivering Indian film and television content to more than 40 million persons of Indian origin living overseas, has secured terms for an inside, up-round for Series B financing, led by its current largest investor, Innovative Entertainment Limited (IEL).
The new capital comes as TinselVision announces four additional online distribution deals with leading Indian film, television and music production houses. Over the past few months, TinselVision secured content licensing deals with Yash Raj Films, Star TV, Zee TV and Zoom TV.
Company sources confirm the amount of the Series B round exceeds the Series A funding level of $3 million, and establishes the company’s pre-launch, post-money valuation at nearly $20 million.
Explaining the reasons for accelerated funding, a spokesman for the company’s finance group noted, “Management has soundly navigated the early capital and content risk phases of the business and, has a growing appetite to extend these early gains.” Its finance team sought and readily obtained acceleration capital in advance of previously planned growth capital. The venture will deploy its deep access to liquidity to implement its tested tactics for infrastructure, distribution and services launch.
TinselVision chairman and CEO Chase Weir stated, “We committed to achieve value creation and content momentum exceeding marketplace norms when we closed Series A funding just five months ago. We have now exceeded the milestones of our original capital commitments and, our investors decided to re-affirm these accomplishments with a near doubling in share value and more than doubling their invested capital.”
IEL board director and president Shahid Khan added, “With expert management, TinselVision has secured a cost structure unmatched among its peers in the industry, with lower than standard commerce transaction costs, better than 60 per cent reductions for content delivery costs over market rate norms, and commercially viable licensing and advertisement concession terms. In addition to these cost-of-revenues successes, the company’s track record with content acquisition is unrivaled in quality and diversity among other providers in this niche — all before the business has even launched services. In case we needed more incentive to further capitalize this venture, the firm’s leadership has done all of this under budget with excess cash on hand, demonstrating their strong stewardship of invested funds.”
The US-India based venture is already in discussions for Series C funding and, intends to disclose terms secured for collapsed film releases, cricket licensing, exclusive IPTV technology rights, and advanced business intelligence offerings to its advertisers and licensors in the coming weeks, in addition to unveiling designs for its v3.0 online services and social networking features. TinselVision will use Series B funding to extend its investments in grassroots community and online viral marketing, in addition to key hires in senior management, content acquisition, advertising sales and extensible distribution.
