YouTube rival gets £15m cash boost

by Andrew McCormick, revolutionmagazine.com 22-Oct-09, 10:17

LONDON - It's easy to forget sometimes but there are other places to watch cats on treadmills than YouTube. Dailymotion is one and today secured £15.4 million of investment to take on the almighty Google video-sharing site.

VC company Atlas Ventures and France's FSI strategic investment fund have chipped in to enable Dailymotion to spread around the world.

The site has 60 million unique users a month worldwide while, by comparison, one billion video views were recorded on one day in YouTube this month.

But Dailymotion does offer more than just cats on treadmills. The investors have recognised that there is a lot of competition on the way with Hulu and Arqiva set to invade the UK soon as professional video content takes off online.

Dailymotion has already raised over £20m in funding in the past but has turned to VCs to help it compete as, YouTube aside, rival video sites have gradually fallen off the radar.