Type of site
|
Video distribution |
---|---|
Owner | Jon Goldman, Chief Executive Officer |
Created by | Dr. Ted Dunning |
Employees | 754 |
Website | http://veoh.com |
Registration | Free |
Current status | Acquired by Qlipso |
Veoh is an Internet television company based in San Diego, California. It allows users to find and watch major studio content, independent productions and user-generated material. The company is a subsidiary of Israeli start-up Qlipso.
The company received media attention after Michael Eisner, a former Disney chairman, joined the board. In April 2006, he was one of the investors (along with Time Warner) in the US$12.5 million second round of financing for Veoh and re-affirmed his status in August 2007 as an investor in the company's US$25 million Series C financing round.
In 2008, the website veoh.com attracted approximately 17 million unique visitors monthly according to a Quantcast.com study.
On February 11, 2010, in an open letter published on his blog, company founder and former CEO, Dmitry Shapiro, indicated that "the distraction of the legal battles, and the challenges of the broader macro-economic climate have led to our Chapter 7 bankruptcy." On April 7, 2010, it was announced that Israeli start-up company Qlipso acquired Veoh for an undisclosed sum. Qlipso aims to use the acquisition to add users and revenue to its multi-user content sharing service.
Included with recent installations of Veoh is a program called OpenCandy, which some security programs, including Microsoft Security Essentials, classify as adware. It also installs Delta Search, setting all the user's browsers to use an ad and tracking-loaded search engine without prompting for user confirmation.
Veoh was founded by Dmitry Shapiro. The company launched an early version of its distribution technology in September 2005 and debuted its full beta service in March 2006. Veoh officially launched (out of beta) in February 2007. Veoh has raised about US$70 million from venture capital and media investors. Time Warner, Michael Eisner's Tornante Company, Spark Capital, Shelter Capital Partners, Tom Freston's Firefly3 LLC, Jonathan Dolgen (former chairman of Viacom Entertainment Group), Intel, and Goldman Sachs are all major investors.