Movieclips Raises $7 Million; Strikes Deal With YouTube

9:00 AM PDT 8/9/2011 by Paul Bond

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The company, which licenses content from the major studios, slices films into short scenes and makes them easy to locate on the Internet.

Movieclips, which puts scenes from movies on the Internet and makes them easy to find, is set to announce Tuesday that it has raised $7 million in a second round of funding and has struck a deal for putting 20,000 HD movie clips on YouTube.

The funding round was led by MK Capital and includes several people and entities that invested in a previous round that raised $3 million.

Movieclips licenses films from several studios and chops them into scenes that can be searched for by title and actor, of course, but also by dialogue, props, locations and more.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company employs 25 people but will hire an additional 10-15 in light of the new funding and relationship with YouTube, said co-founder Richard Raddon.

"It’s the first time that this much licensed movie clip content will be available on YouTube." Raddon said.

The same content was already available at Movieclips.com, but YouTube will put it in front of far more people and on mobile devices and Internet-connected TV screens.

“They take away a lot of the burden for a startup to get on these platforms,” Raddon said. "We believe YouTube will be the next cable."

Movieclips earns money by selling ads that it attaches to the film scenes, and typically it has a revenue-share deal with studios, as it now does with YouTube, as well.