Berlin and London-based movie recommendation and discovery platform Moviepilot has secured a further $7 million (£4.3 million) of growth capital through its Series B fundraising.
The round has been led by DFJ Esprit and also involves existing backers T-Venture, Grazia Equity and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft. Moviepilot’s new funds will be used to continue with its US expansion and strengthen its platform’s position in the market.
Founded in 2007, Moviepilot’s service allows users to find out about upcoming projects and keep track of developments in the movie space.
Tobi Bauckhage, CEO and co-founder of Moviepilot, comments, ‘With the new funding secured and the move to Los Angeles coming up, this quarter marks the most significant milestone of Moviepilot to date.
‘The campaigns we have already run on behalf of the world’s biggest studios have given us a fantastic base to further develop our brand of social marketing services for movies.’
Moviepilot has worked with Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Disney and Paramount. Along with its sister site Moviepilot.de, the business has a combined Facebook ‘fanbase’ of 5.4 million, according to a statement.
Moviepilot opened its London office in January 2012 and placed Claire Holland, former international advertising sales executive at IMDB, in charge. Its new office in Los Angeles is due to open towards the end of 2012, with help from the Series B funds.
Krishna Visvanathan, partner at DFJ Esprit, adds, ‘Box-office weekend performance is the key to a film’s success just as it is the focus for true film fans everywhere, combining a social experience with months of anticipation.
‘Moviepilot brings these two elements together in a unique way through its platform. It leverages the social graph to build film fans anticipation and to target film studios’ promotional activities at the right fans ahead of, and around, box-office weekend.’
The deal for DFJ Esprit is its second in a week following its earlier Series A backing of SportPursuit, a business which sells discounted sports goods.
