MUBI, the online cinema platform, says it’s hit a significant growth curve recently, crossing one million registered users. It’s also raised $2.4 million from Angels to strengthen its balance sheet and grow the team in a round round led by Eduardo Costantini and which includes existing investors, Martin Varsavsky (founder of Fon), and Alec Oxenford.
The investment was joined by Aydin Senkut, Georges Harik, Joel Peterson, Bart Decrem, Eduardo Costantini, and Jose Marin. There were no institutional investors.
Headquartered in London with offices in Palo Alto and Paris, MUBI counts Martin Scorsese as a member and describes itself as a kind of Rdio or Spotify for film. It’s certainly been doing deals to that effect – it has 145 distribution deals globally and cleared rights to show more than 3,000 films.
Founder and CEO Efe Cakarel describes the vision as being to “create a platform where you access the best films instantly on any device globally.” To that end it is curated, with a strong editorial bent on the “best” films.
So we’re talking a VOD site with a social side where you follow friends (like on Twitter) and receive their film activity on your newsfeed on MUBI, Facebook, and Twitter.
It’s also available on PlayStation 3 after Sony invested in return for revenue share and is integrated with PlayStation Network and their billing system in 18 countries.