Cinemacraft Secures Funding From 500 Startups

Asian interactive media solutions firm Cinemacraft, founded by Indian-origin entrepreneur Sandeep Casi, has secured series A round of funding from 500 Startups, a global business accelerator and related investment fund.

Although the firm has not disclosed the quantum of the latest funding, together with earlier investments from promoters of Singapore-based Jungle Ventures and some angel investors, it has managed to raise around $900,000.

The firm counts Anurag Srivastava(managing partner of Jungle Ventures), Takuro Wakabayashi(Xseed Partners, LLP), Jai Maroo (Shemaroo Entertainment), Devesh Chetty (CEO, RGM Media), Jayesh Parekh (founder, Sony Entertainment TV) and Dave McClure(500 Startups) as its investors.

Cinemacraft is a provider of consumer-focused new media applications, enabled and deployed via its proprietary interactive media platform. The company's flagship product is a proprietary Cloud-based interactive media distribution platform (and decoder) which enables content owners to stream interactive media across a multitude of mobile devices and networks. The firm also provides Platform API to third parties to deploy their own innovative media solutions from Cinemacraft's Cloud-based platform.

Sandeep Casi, an Indian-origin entrepreneur and founder of Cinemacraft, is also the co-founder of TiE Japan and an angel investor focused on media technologies. Commenting on the development, he said, "This vote of confidence from 500 Startups will help us further streamline our product and strengthen the roll-out efforts in our core markets of Japan, the USA, India and Indonesia."

The investment will be used to deploy interactive video ad network and its first consumer video applications in the above countries.

"The mobile video consumption continues to increase in Japan, the USA and the South-east Asia as smartphones and Tablets penetrate at a rapid pace. Today, most videos on mobile are delivered for passive viewing. Cinemacraft, with its disruptive media delivery platform, is poised to be a leader in interactive consumption of videos and a new breed of interactive video-intensive apps," said Dave McClure, founding partner at 500 Startups.