When it comes to video advertising, new contenders are popping out like mushrooms after the rain. The typical problem of these companies is getting enough traction from both high paying advertisers and quality content publishers, in order to make the match between the ad and the content. Imcandy, a new Israel-based startup, presents a new concept for user generated video content and marries publishing and advertising together. Imcandy is shooting for quality: videos which are easy to watch and find, yet with high level of production.
In the business of digital video media, money talks. While non-paid user generated content is by far the most popular kind of online video you’ll see on YouTube for example, creation of high quality content can be achieved with the right incentive. Therefore, Imcandy created a two part platform:
- i
mcandy.com – a free online video portal that offers videos with a unique structure. Videos are categorized by channels (comedy, cooking, music etc.), each with a predefined story structure that ensures authenticity and a certain level of proficiency. Imcandy only publishes videos that have been created according to structure and compensates creators’ efforts in the following way:
Each video that is published on imcandy is attached with 5 seconds video-ads (number of video-ads in a video may vary according to video length) and imcandy gives creators adRoyalties. adRoyalties are 30% of revenues generated by ad views in their videos, directly from advertisers cost – no third party mediator. The average video advertisement cost is $20 per 1000 ad-views (may vary according to the targeted profile selected by advertiser) so revenues to creator might sum up to a substantial profit.
adRoyalties.com connects video creators with video advertisers. adRoyalties lets creators to manage their adRoyalties account (revenues) and enables advertisers to create video-ads in few easy steps. Imcandy video-ads are based on adRoyalties system and in the future the system will be also available for other video publishers.
The Imcandy concept optimizes the video experience:
- Videos content is organized, logic and clear; Viewers know what to expect
- Creators are motivated for professional producing due to high profit potential
On the competitive landscape, Israel’s Metacafe is the one that stands out. With its “producer rewards” program, Metacafe pays $5, on every 1000 views after reaching the first 20,000 views – far behind what Imcandy is willing to pay during its alpha. Metacafe’s top earner has made $103,000 from online videos, so the incentive is definitely there. It would be interesting to follow imcandy and see whether it can capture a leading position in this new market of revenue (royalties) sharing for user content.
Other players in the video arena coming from Israel include 5min, who recently released an embeddable player that can handle text, video and images, and AniBoom (see VC Cafe posts), who offers a rev-share program to animated user generated content.
Imcandy.com and adRoyalties.com are currently in open alpha. The company plans to raise seed capital in order to further develop and promote the new websites – contact me if you’re looking for introductions. During alpha imcandy will pay $15-50 per video to first creators who publish their videos, definitely a good alternative to uploading your home made video to YouTube, Metacafe and so on.
Imcandy was co-founded in 2007 by Avihai Ozana and Guy Bashan, who have also established Amadesa, a site optimization startup that recently raised $5.4 million from Carmel Ventures (learn more about Amadesa on this VC Cafe post).
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
