Wistia pulls in $775K for video sharing business

Wistia, a startup that helps businesses share video with customers, partners and others, as well as track who watches it, has secured $775,000 in new financing from its angel investors.
The Lexington, Mass. company offers “video sharing for the average business user, not someone in IT,” said Christopher Savage, co-founder and chief executive of the three-and-a-half-year-old company.
But Wistia’s business model is more than just uploading a video and sending someone a link to it, Savage said. Its software-as-a-service product gives customers the option of selectively sharing videos with certain people while not making it available on the public Internet. If someone wants to selectively share a video, a customer can invite people to view it on Wistia’s website after entering a username and password.
Wistia also offers highly detailed analytical tools so customers can determine how many people watched the video, how many minutes of the video they watched and other information, he said.
Other companies in the video-for-business industry include Fliqz, Brightcove, and Ooyala, Savage said, but he emphasized Wistia selective sharing and analytical tools.
Among Wistia’s more than 200 customers are the commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, textbook publisher Pearso,n and the acrobatic troupe Cirque du Soleil. They use it to distribute product demonstrations, customer testimonials, training videos and replay of webinars for people who couldn’t see the live webcast.
Today’s funding is the second round for Wistia and follows a $650,000 investment in 2008. Savage declined to identify the investors. The company will use the new cash to hire more people and expanding marketing and advertising.
Tags: Brightcove, Cirque du Soleil, Cushman & Wakefield, Fliqz, Ooyala, Pearson, video sharing
Companies: Wistia
People: Christopher Savage