Machinima Closes $24m Financing Led by Warner Bros. Entertainment
The investment builds on a year-long transformation at Machinima, during which monthly viewership is up over 70% and U.S. unique viewers have tripled. Overall, Machinima boasts a massive audience of more than 430 million subscribers worldwide, 170 million monthly unique viewers and 3.7 billion monthly video views.
“In 2014, Machinima regained our leadership position in the global digital video marketplace by focusing on our Talent Network and transforming our brand into one that is reflective of our content, our audience and our community of creators,” said Gutstein. “This additional funding will enable Machinima to accelerate our growth through increased investments in content and technology that better serves our audiences, advertisers, creators and distributors.”
“Under Chad’s leadership, Machinima continues to grow as a key entertainment destination for millennials,” said Craig Hunegs, President, Business and Strategy, Warner Bros. Television Group. “With its enormous fan base, Machinima is an important exhibition partner, providing content creators, including Warner Bros., multiple platforms for distributing and monetizing digital content and programming brands.”
Warner Bros.’ participation in this funding continues the longstanding relationship between the two companies, which has resulted in record-breaking, successful live-action web series including two seasons of “Mortal Kombat: Legacy.” Later this year, Machinima will release “Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles,” an animated limited series from DC Comics and Blue Ribbon Content, and executive produced by Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett.
In 2014, the company revamped its executive team first with the hiring of former Ovation TV COO Chad Gutstein as CEO. Throughout the year, Gutstein unveiled key appointments to all areas of Machinima’s business, including most recently Chief Content Officer Daniel Tibbets.
The new team capped off 2014 by executing a comprehensive brand repositioning of the company. Placing a renewed focus on Machinima’s vast and gifted talent network, and original programming capabilities, the rebrand featured a new tagline “Heroes Rise” along with a completely revamped talent program, which was supported by the launch of Console, a state-of-the-art technology platform. Additionally, the Machinima.com website was overhauled into a valuable resource for creators and advertisers and the Machinima Legion viewer panel was unveiled.
With more than 30 million monthly unique viewers, Machinima currently ranks ninth in total U.S. audience for Online Video Entertainment Properties and fourth for U.S. males 18-49. The Company is making a concerted effort to supplement its explosive YouTube presence with additional distribution platforms. Recently, Machinima announced distribution partnerships with Samsung and Vessel.
About Machinima:
Machinima is the most notorious purveyor and cultivator of fandom and gamer culture. The FIRST! Many2Many programing service (M2M), we create, curate and celebrate the best fandom and gamer content across multiple video platforms. As one of the largest online video platforms in the world, Machinima programs to a community passionate about video games, animation, movies, TV, and the other endless forms of pop culture. With a focus on scripted, topical and gaming programing, and a talent network of thousands of programmers, Machinima reaches over 170M viewers each month.