User:EverTheEditor/Viki-1

Viki is a video streaming website based in Singapore that offers on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, and music videos from around the world. It is also the first and fastest platform for real-time subtitling of video, relying on a community of thousands of volunteer translators. The company currently has offices in Singapore, San Francisco, and Seoul, South Korea.

The name Viki is a play on the words video and Wikipedia, drawing similarities to those companies’ use of volunteers for content management. The company won the Crunchie award for best international start-up company in January 2011.

History
The concept for Viki was originally developed in 2007 as a joint project between Harvard and Stanford graduate school students. Razmig Hovaghimian, a student at Stanford at the time, saw the challenges of spreading content overseas and founded Viki, along with partners Changseong Ho and Jiwon Moon, as a way to break down those barriers.

Funding for the company originally came from Neoteny Labs, a Singapore start-up fund headed by Joichi Ito, and from the co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. The company moved to Singapore in 2008 to take advantage of generous government backing and the city-state’s role as a pan-Asian hub. In December 2010, Viki exited the beta phase of its software, and made its services available to the general public.

Services
Viki screens premium licensed content in a similar way that Hulu does in U.S. markets. Viki also syndicates its shows with fan-generated subtitles to partners such as Hulu, Netflix, and Yahoo!, and receives fees and revenue from those distributors.

Corporate partnerships
On September 23, 2011, Viki debuted a new iPhone app called Viki On-The-Go, allowing users to watch content on their smartphones. The company also partnered with Samsung Southeast Asia that same year to develop an Android app. Viki.com drew 14 million unique views in August 2011, and raised $20 million from Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and BBC Worldwide in October of that year.

In May of 2012, Viki announced deals with Warner Music, SEED Music Group of Taiwan, and South Korea’s LEON, bringing thousands of music videos to the site. In that same month, BBC Worldwide announced an extension of its relationship with Viki, including a deal to work with the company on advertising.

On July 13, 2012, Viki inked a non-exclusive deal with the Chinese social network, Renren, in which Viki would provide a video site for the social network called VikiZone. The deal includes only a portion of the Viki catalog and is offered for free.

The company has a list of partners for sourcing original content, including BBC Worldwide. The company has also signed distribution deals for its original content with Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo!, MSN, NBC, and A&E, as well as TVB in Hong Kong, SBS in South Korea, Fuji TV in Japan and Amedia in Russia.