Here’s the press release:
[TurnHere] today announced that it has secured $7.5M in funding from Venrock and Hearst Interactive Media, a division of the Hearst Corporation. The funding will enable the development of new, innovative online video products and services for TurnHere customers, as well as enhanced tools for the growth and expansion of the TurnHere filmmaker network and in-house production team.
TurnHere has relationships with YellowPages.com, Citysearch and Superpages, among others and has emerged as the premier production company for the local market. When the company started it was doing direct sales to SMBs and was syndicating that content to third party video sites. When it decided to become a “production house” and leave the selling to existing channels the local part of its business started taking off.
SpotRunner recently acquired GlobeShooter, a local videographer and production network to be able to match TurnHere’s distributed custom production capability. Denver Multimedia and others offer similar services but aren’t quite as well known. As mentioned, Howcast is building this as well, as a supporting feature of its primary consumer business. There’s never been a better time to be a film student or independent filmmaker.
In the risk-adverse world of VC investing, this is one of the “lowest hanging fruit” opportunities imaginable. The interesting question is what “enhancements” or new products will TurnHere be developing? It already has reach into the UK and Europe.
