Vimeo, which has been moving over the past several months to further invest in its orginal content and creator community, announced this morning it has acquired VHX, a company providing a platform for premium over-the-top subscription (OTT) video channels. Deal terms were not revealed, but Vimeo will bring on the entire 22-person VHX team, including co-founders and a large number of biz dev employees, as a part of the acquisition.
VHX was founded by Jamie Wilkinson and Casey Pugh in 2010, according to CrunchBase, and had raised $10.25 million from investors including Comcast Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and others. It had developed a video distribution platform that let creators sell their work online, via their own websites – basically, everything that used to be sold via DVD whether TV shows, live concert footage, comedy specials, educational content, etc., VHX could now help to distribute.
The company took a leap into mobile at the beginning of the year, with new capabilities for publishers to launch their own custom apps.
Its OTT platform had around 30,000 active subscribers to 100 SVOD channels, notes Variety. VHX’s website says that it had 9,321 titles on sale, and had seen over a million paid transactions.
According to Vimeo, the aim with the deal is to now take Vimeo’s over-the-top solution to studios, agencies, domestic and international broadcasters, and existing subscription services looking for a lower-cost solution.
“Online video is expanding from a few, mainstream subscription services into a flourishing world of interest-based streaming channels, much like the evolution from broadcast to cable television,” said Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor, in a statement, . “Vimeo is home to the world’s leading video creators and the viewers who love them, and we’re excited to add VHX’s team and technology to our streaming marketplace. As the video universe continues to unbundle, Vimeo offers the ideal home for the next generation of premium video channels serving passionate global audiences.”
Vimeo today reaches over 280M monthly users, the company reports, in over 200 markets. It had begun allowing its creators to make more money from their content starting last summer, when it expanded from offering just video rentals and sales to letting creators charge subscriptions, too.
With VHX, it will now have a suite of subscription video tools that will let it help not only individual creators, but those with larger content catalogs, including programmers and other media companies.