Startup offers cheap platform for uploading videos for brand exposure

This Australian startup is expanding to Singapore.

Brands are increasingly looking for opportunities to create meaningful conversations with large audiences in more unique ways, and Vimily is billing itself as an affordable and simple app that allows businesses to create personally relevant content without having to invest in costly camera crews.

Vimily puts online video creation in the hands of businesses by providing users with an easy way to create, manage and share video content with consumers. Brands can also use Vimily to gain insightful market research about their target market. For example, brands can arm their promotional staff with smartphones to conduct brief interviews with potential customers at an event. The videos can then be instantly uploaded to a secure platform that is hosted on Amazon Web Services.

It only takes three simple steps to use Vimily:

1. Brands can use pre-defined questions to host interviews of up to three minutes
2. Demographic information of an interviewee can be easily gathered and uploaded onto Vimily’s platform.
3. After a video has been approved for publication, brands can add their company logo and a website link to each video. Brands can also repost videos on their own social platforms and websites and send a link of the video to theinterviewee so they can share it across their own accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and YouTube.

According to Katrin Suess, CTO and co-founder, brands can also use Vimily to embed a ‘call to action’ in each video where users can be prompted to make a donation, enter their personal details for a video competition or click to visit a website for further information.

“For example, we recently created a record 1,281 videos at Australia’s largest business technology event CeBIT, where only six student volunteers interviewed exhibitors who pitched their businesses to delegates over three days. We’ve also equipped brands with a tool to easily conduct market research in a more engaging and personal way,which is a huge leap from the traditional surveys and questionnaires,” she said.

Suess shared that the company has a lot of exciting product developments in the pipeline to build out both the market research functions of the platform, and the branding opportunities available in the videos. For example, the company aims to open our API to support customised app developments using Vimily’s technology. They are also looking at how they can incorporate pre-roll video advertisement in each video to enhance brand recognition with audiences.

Vimily is an Australian startup but is looking to expand market in Singapore. “Our plans for the business are to expand operations in Asia and Europe. The Asian market, in particular Singapore, is of great interest to us due to the market’s early adoption and high levels of engagement with user generated video content. I would say in many ways Singapore is ahead of the curve here, so as a company that is looking to disrupt the video landscape and be at the forefront of video content creation, this market really excites us.”

____

COMPANY PROFILE

Name of the company: Vimily
Founder/Founders: Matthew Barnett and Katrin Suess
Website:https://www.vimily.com/
Major Investors:Five private investors in a “pre-seed” round $230k AUD(investors not disclosed)
Total funding at hand: $230k in a “pre-seed” round.
Target fund:Vimily is targeting to raise A$1M to fund our global growth.
Source of funding: Angels (private investors)
Start of operation: Business incorporated in April 2012; launched inAustraliaand Singapore in June 2013