Spotlight on video streaming service Vimeo with 100mil unique users

November 20, 2013 Leave a comment

Updated: Monday November 18, 2013 MYT 12:36:39 PM

Spotlight on video streaming service Vimeo with 100mil unique users

As one of the media properties tucked away within IAC/Interactive Corp’s vast group of online holdings, executives are putting the spotlight on Vimeo, breaking out the number of users and revenue for the first time. IAC revealed that Vimeo has an audience of more than 100 million unique users, 400,000 paying subscribers and about $40 million in revenue over the past 12 months ending October.“We have a number of assets that could live on their own,” said IAC Chief ExecutiveGreg Blatt. “Vimeo, we believe, is an asset that will reach that status.”

As a video web site, Vimeo competes with Google’s <GOOG.O> YouTube and other streaming videoservices though it is known for attracting a niche audience of creative professionals.

Founded in 2004 by a group of filmmakers under media mogul Barry Diller’s IAC, Vimeo has been grouped with company’s other media properties such as Ben Silverman’s Electus production studio.

Anyone can post content to Vimeo’s platform or watch it for free, but the company charges $60 or $200 a year for more comprehensive editing tools depending on the package.

“We have begun to turn our attention to how do we build a business around the viewers,” said Kerry Trainor, Vimeo’s chief executive officer.

Part of that strategy is giving Vimeo subscribers a way to charge for their own content. Vimeo takes a 10 percent cut of the revenue.

“Vimeo has proven there is an entire world of really high quality content out there, just as YouTubeshowed the power of broadcasting,” Trainor said.

Vimeo hired News Corp executive vice president Greg Clayman in October to grow Vimeo’s audience by building partnerships with content creators.

IAC also houses a collection of search and dating sites such as Ask.com and Match.com, which represent a majority of the company’s revenue and operating income.

In recent quarters, IAC’s search business – its largest – has been slowing. It is turning to other revenue sources such as video to keeps its growth streak alive.

Jason Helfstein, a research managing director at Oppenheimer & Co, estimates that Vimeo’s average valuation at the mid-point is about $500 million.

“It has been one of IAC’s most successful startups,” he said.- Reters

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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