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How this Singapore startup went from bootstrapping to securing USD2.3 million in funding

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Derek Tan (left), 31, and Ho Jia Jian (right), 28, are co-founders of Viddsee, a Singapore-based hybrid video platform that went from humble bootstrapping to securing a seven-figure sum to date (Photo: Viddsee)

By: Kyle Malinda-White

Viddsee, a Singapore-based video platform for budding Asian filmmakers, announced today that it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding, accumulating funds to a whopping USD2.3 million to date. It previously secured a S$50,000 government-backed grant a few months after it started up in late 2012.

The latest round of funding was led by Japan-based CyberAgent Ventures (CAV), which was the majority investor. The company did not disclose information on other investors in the round of funding.

The platform, headed by co-founders Derek Tan and Ho Jia Jian, is now poised to take on the regional market with the added funding. The company is set to double down on plans to expand into markets such as Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines to support budding filmmakers there with an ecosystem to publish and market their work.

However, things did not go easy from the onset.

In an interview with Yahoo Singapore, Tan, 31, said tensions between him and Ho - both former students in National University of Singapore - were high when it came to deciding how Viddsee should be built in its early days. Stakes were even higher because Ho, a Malaysian, was a permanent resident in Singapore and had to contend with bread-and-butter issues.

“From Jia Jian’s standpoint, he needed to rent an apartment. Taking the plunge away from a stable job meant there were more sacrifices to be made: money going out instead of in. It was very, very real: having to pay for rental. He went to hawker centres and had to be thrifty, choosing cai fan (mixed rice) over something else. I was still working, so when we were out for meetings, I had to bear the costs first,” said Tan.

Tan’s early days working for a startup in Silicon Valley worked in his favour as he had learnt the rough-and-tumble nature of entrepreneurship. He said it put him in good stead in learning how to tackle problems.

“Because of our backgrounds in entrepreneurship, we came with the mentality of making things work. In the beginning, we took a short time to get our product out. We experimented with marketing content instead of just hosting it. We saw our Facebook page grow, people reacting to our content. It’s working on those little experiments,” Tan said, recounting the company’s strategy of starting out with a Facebook page in September 2012 before launching a website in January 2013.

“Success is measured through those little wins, and then you try to scale things up. We came with the mentality to make things work with the least required resources.”

The quality of content on Viddsee, Tan says, is a stark contrast to low-quality, user-generated content that is going viral. He believes there is a gap for cinematic mobile-friendly video content that Viddsee is fulfilling.

“We’re quite saddened when we see baby videos or cat videos getting billion of views online. There is a lot of noise. We wanted to surface content for filmmakers in the region. People have been watching (such films) in traditional spaces, but we believe the medium has changed,” said Tan.

“Our investors saw it. The video space is growing, but another thing is to look at the space of high-quality entertainment. What we want to do is craft that space for professional content.”

The founders’ gumption in providing solutions to challenges is something Tan hopes to see in future entrepreneurs. He cautioned against entrepreneurs without technological know-how seeing films like The Social Network and getting into the startup business because it is seen as popular.

“Being in it is a lot of hard work, and it’s not as easy as what the media portrays it to be. I’m not sure if a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs see that. (Their motives) can be to sell the company, but they also need to make a stand,” said Tan.

“Me and my co-founder are engineers that have a strong passion for film. A passion for technology can change industries. When bad things happen and they happen all the time, you need to go back to why you are doing this. I don’t fault entrepreneurs who do it for money, but it needs to come from passion, not just because it’s the “in” thing,” he said.

In a statement, Takahiro Suzuki, spokesperson for CyberAgent Ventures, says the company is confident Viddsee will become the touchpoint for online cinematic content, giving mobile-oriented audiences in countries such as Indonesia “their first experience of watching quality films”.