Asian Short Film Aggregator Viddsee Signs With Discovery

Based in Singapore, Viddsee is a youthful online media company (founded in 2012 and launched online in 2013) - known for curating and sharing short films from Asia.

From its humble beginnings (a $50,000 SGD - $40,000 USD - seed funding from ACE, a startup incubator run by the Singaporean government), the global reach of Viddsee has grown to include over 2 millions unique views each month - attracting interest from VCs like Tokyo-based CyberAgent Ventures. 

Founders Ho Jia Jian and Derek Tan are filmmakers/engineers who previously built online platforms for local TV operators.

In addition to their core offering - curating great short films from Asia (including great short films from the best film schools in Asia) - Viddsee is also pioneering an interactive model that is intended to complement what is currently being offered by traditional networks. 

For example, back in 2013 Viddsee started using their social engine to run online contests, enabling viewers to select their favorite films in partnership with an established traditional TV outlet. Viddsee's first partnership with a traditional channel was with the Tokyo Broadcasting System's (TBS) DigiCon6 Singapore Channel. In late 2013 Viddsee introduced its first Viewers Choice Award, allowing viewers to vote online for their favorite digital animations in conjunction with TBS. Now, according to a May 31, 2016 post to techcrunch, Viddsee is partnering with Discovery - streaming two series from Discovery, “Singapore Stories” and “Super Japan.”" The plan is for Viddsee to add one new Discovery offering per month.

While the site if free for now, and as far as I can tell the the Discovery content does not come with ads, future revenue models might include pay-per-view for certain titles or site subscriptions.

The goal may be to expand traditional channels onto online outlets that are better at gathering data about and from users. As Catherine Shu wrote in techcrunch: "Its content distribution and marketing model allows Viddsee to stand out from Southeast Asian companies that compete more directly with Netflix, like iFlix and HOOQ, as well as platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, where independent filmmakers often post their work. One film, “The Herd” by Melanie Light, got 90,000 views on Vimeo—but wracked up over one million views in less than a month after debuting on Viddsee."