Rakuten Viki is an American video streaming website. It streams videos similar to other services, but also allows users to subtitle content available in 200 languages as well as provides original programming. Headquartered in

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ; ) is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula. About 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco, the city borders Burlingame to the north, Hillsborough to the west, San Francisco Bay and Foster ...

, it has offices in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, and

Seoul, South Korea Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 o ...

. The name Viki is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsWiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

, drawing on the latter company's use of volunteers for

content management Content management (CM) is a set of processes and technologies that supports the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. When stored and accessed via computers, this information may be more specifically referre ...

. The company won the Crunchie award for best international start-up company in January 2011.

History

2007–2012; Early history

Viki was founded in 2007 by

Razmig Hovaghimian Razmig Hovaghimian is an American entrepreneur. He is co-founder and CEO of the international online streaming video site Viki, and senior executive officer of global content, board observer and Entrepreneur in residence at Japanese ecommerce co ...

, Changseong Ho and Jiwon Moon. Funding for the company originally came from Neoteny Labs, a

start-up A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

fund headed by Joichi Ito, and from the co-founder of

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...

Reid Hoffman Reid Garrett Hoffman (born August 5, 1967) is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman was the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for prof ...

. The company moved to Singapore in 2008 to take advantage of government backing and the

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

’s role as a pan-Asian hub. In December 2010, Viki exited the beta phase of its

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

and made its services available to the general public. It was purchased by Rakuten in 2013. In September 2011, Viki debuted a new iPhone app called Viki On-The-Go, allowing users to watch content on their

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...

s. The company also partnered with

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

Southeast Asia that year to develop an Android app. Viki.com drew 14 million unique views in August 2011. Viki raised $20 million from

Greylock Partners Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in the consumer, enterprise software and infrastructure as wel ...

Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z, legal name AH Capital Management, LLC) is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Andreessen H ...

, and

BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadca ...

in October of that year. In May 2012, Viki announced deals with

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and th ...

, SEED Music Group of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

, and

LOEN Entertainment Kakao M (; formerly Seoul Records, YBM Seoul Records and LOEN Entertainment) was a South Korean entertainment company established by Min Yeong-bin in 1978. It is currently one of the largest co-publisher companies in South Korea. The company op ...

of South Korea, 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 Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

. In July 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.

2013–present; Purchase by Rakuten

In the year following its acquisition by

Rakuten () is a Japanese technology conglomerate based in Tokyo, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Centered around Rakuten Ichiba, its businesses include financial services utilizing financial technology, as well as digital content and communicati ...

, Viki went from about 22 million

monthly active users Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...

with 10 million on mobile to 35 million monthly active users and 25 million mobile users. 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 MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, and A&E, as well as TVB in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

, SBS in South Korea,

Fuji TV JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network S ...

in Japan and Amedia in Russia.

Services

Viki streams premium licensed

content Content or contents may refer to: Media * Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers ** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mas ...

in a similar way that

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series ...

does in U.S. markets. The site then puts the content on one of its channels, and the content can be subtitled by community volunteers. Community members can subtitle their favorite videos in their preferred languages, under a

Creative Commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

using Viki's subtitling technology, enabling individuals to collaborate globally, in dozens of languages at once. The subtitling software developed for the company allows many volunteers to translate a video concurrently in up to 160 languages. Viki also syndicates its shows with fan-generated subtitles to partners such as Hulu,

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

, and

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Mana ...

, and receives fees and

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive rev ...

from those

distributors A distributor is an enclosed rotating switch used in spark-ignition internal combustion engines that have mechanically timed ignition. The distributor's main function is to route high voltage current from the ignition coil to the spark plugs ...

. Of the approximately 200 language subtitles available on the site, roughly 50 of these are vulnerable or endangered languages.

Original programming

Viki has more than 100 original programs, including entertainment shows, drama and mini-series. * '' Dramaworld'' (2016) * ''

Where Your Eyes Linger ''Where Your Eyes Linger'' () is a 2020 South Korean web series starring Han Gi-chan, Jang Eui-soo, Choi Kyu-ri, and Jeon Jae-young. It is an original drama of W-STORY, and is available for streaming on its platform from May 22 to June 12, 202 ...

'' (2020) * '' Light on Me'' (2021)

References

External links

*
Coolest Offices in Singapore - Viki Office Tour
{{Rakuten Advertising video on demand American companies established in 2007 Companies based in San Mateo, California Rakuten IOS software Android (operating system) software 500 Startups companies 2013 mergers and acquisitions Internet television streaming services