BitMovio, Inc.'s original offering opened on November 8, 2019 and closed on March 2, 2020 by the owner of the offering. The information on this page was accurate as of March 2, 2020.
BitMovio is a next-generation gamified video entertainment platform for the Fortnite generation with a freemium business model. It fundamentally transforms how content is monetized, how content creators are paid, how content creators and fans interact and engage, and how value and attention are compensated and rewarded. It also provides unprecedented flexibility, interactivity and transparency for content creators to monetize their content and build their fan base in the web 3.0 era.
“Blockchain has the power to create transparency and accessibility to the video entertainment space, and bring a new dimension to watching streaming content. BitMovio’s platform will bridge blockchain and the free marketplace for video entertainment in a truly unique and innovative way. We’re excited about what the technology will bring to content creators and audiences globally.”
“The video streaming industry continues to grow in prominence and the World Poker Tour is proud to air its television show on BitMovio, a new industry force. We are thrilled to enable BitMovio viewers the opportunity to enjoy episodes of the World Poker Tour from wherever they may reside across the globe.”
“We are always looking for new ways to deliver our programming to our more than 10M DUST and ALTER fans, as well as find new audiences. Partnering with BitMovio, as a cutting-edge and forward-looking new video platform, is a natural fit for us and we are excited for our brands and audiences to start using the platform.”
“We are continuously looking for new ways to reach audiences around the world with our programming and BitMovio brings a new exciting approach to managing, distributing and monetizing video content. We believe that this innovative platform will enable viewers to access our content however they want, whenever they want.”
“BitMovio shares our vision of enabling creators to develop bespoke pieces of content and then build an engaged fan base anywhere online. They bring an innovative approach to managing, distributing and monetizing video content that allows us to drive new revenue streams while building new fan bases on the BitMovio platform.”
“We’re dedicated to enabling an open dialog with our audience, and we’ve found that BitMovio also shares this focus of empowering all voices to have a platform to discuss global news events in an uncensored and monetizable way. By partnering with BitMovio, we are hoping to engage these audiences, and empower them to connect with and influence decision-makers regardless of ethnicity or socioeconomic status.”
The key problems we intend to solve in the entertainment industry involve:
Free-to-play games have gained extreme popularity among the younger generation, as exemplified by Fortnite, the free-to-play ‘battle royale’ game from Epic Games that has garnered over 250 million total users to date. The performance has been so impressive that even Netflix now considers Fortnite a formidable threat - perhaps even more formidable than its old nemesis HBO. The freemium business model, which includes in-game virtual currency together with in-app purchases, and a multitude of community features have all contributed to the game industry’s growth and profitability.
On the contrary, today’s video entertainment companies are not preparing for the future of media & entertainment, and in the process will damage creativity, as well as undermine the democracy of video entertainment. The video streaming ecosystem has already been bifurcated into two distinct “lanes”:
Neither of these two lanes, however, provide users or content creators with the level of interactivity, engagement and choice that we believe Millennials and younger audiences will demand from video streaming services going forward.
Additional problems created by the legacy platforms include:
Therefore, we believe a 3rd lane will emerge in video streaming - Freemium Video Streaming with Gamification. This will be a massive opportunity - perhaps even larger than SVOD and AVOD combined when all is said and done - to introduce proven, highly-profitable gamification techniques of the kind perfected by Epic Games in Fortnite into video streaming.
BitMovio solves the problems that these centralized gatekeeper platforms have created for content creators and users, and introduces to the video streaming market interactivity, engagement and gamification elements that have made freemium games such as Fortnite a worldwide sensation.
Our Blockchain-based approach has a wide variety of important benefits for content creators and users alike. For instance, BitMovio enables content owners to:
For our users, in particular those Millennial and Gen Z early adopters who embrace the freemium business model embodied by the gaming community - choosing to pay for content in micro increments (including via cryptocurrency if they so elect), tipping and gifting content creators they particularly enjoy - we provide a number of benefits completely absent from existing video streaming platforms, including:
BitMovio brings community back into video streaming, and is therefore well-positioned to assume a position of leadership in this third lane of Freemium Video Streaming with Gamification.
Each user of the BitMovio platform has a native eWallet associated with their account. The eWallet supports cryptocurrencies including ETH (the native currency for the Ethereum blockchain) and other ERC20 crypto tokens, and virtual currency including BitMovio’s proprietary MoviBits. The in-platform MoviBits virtual currency can be purchased using a credit card, debit card, or in-app purchases and will be directly added to the user’s eWallet so that the user can use the MoviBits to tip content creators and unlock premium content.
Content creators on the BitMovio platform can publish pre-recorded video content immediately or schedule a premiere event to stream content and interact with viewers. For premium content partners, we also support the option to enable the DRM (digital rights management) content protection for each piece of content they license to us.
To enable the best consumer performance for live and on-demand video streaming, with highest availability, minimum buffering and latency and also decentralization, we are adopting a hybrid streaming infrastructure. The majority of our infrastructure is enabled by centralized solutions such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Storage and AWS Content Delivery Networks. We are also planning to leverage decentralized solutions such as InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for decentralized storage and Theta Network for decentralized mesh video streaming for both cost savings, added incentivization, and decentralization.
BitMovio is a freemium video entertainment platform and offers diverse monetization options for content creators who want to monetize their work including short videos, live streams, and feature-length films. Creators who want to reach the widest audience can publish their content for free, then receive compensation from advertising sponsorships and fan support including donations. Other creators can set up a small micropayment-style paywall for short video content, a larger paywall for feature-length films, or even weekly or monthly subscription plans for their entire content collection. In addition, content creators will be able to leverage their existing fan base for prepayment of their upcoming project, once the feature is launched. The key is that content creators on BitMovio have complete control over how they monetize their video entertainment.
Gamification and interactive experiences are what drive BitMovio. In addition to being able to purchase the MoviBits virtual currency for in-platform transactions, users can also earn tokens through positive interactions with the BitMovio community. Users can engage with content by commenting on scenes or whole videos, upvoting or downvoting comments, and chatting with other viewers or creators. Here are a few of the different ways users and content creators can earn tokens on the platform:
According to Cisco Virtual Network Index [1], globally, IP video traffic, including Internet video, IP VoD, video files exchanged through file sharing, video-streamed gaming, and video conferencing, will account for 82 percent of traffic by 2022. With the availability of 5G networks, global mobile data traffic will grow nearly twice as fast as fixed IP traffic from 2017 to 2022. According to Zenith [2], the average time spent globally watching online video in mobile devices is almost three times of that in desktop/non-mobile devices.
The existing three major business models to monetize online video are subscription business model (SVOD) where consumers pay a recurring subscription fee to access the entire category of video content, transaction business model (TVOD) where consumers pay to access each piece of content, and advertising business model (AVOD) where consumers access content for free but need to watch advertisement during the video program sponsored by advertisers. According to pwc [3] and statista [4], the revenue for global SVOD and TVOD online video (or paid video) reaches US$45 billion in 2019, and the revenue for global AVOD online video (or free video) reaches US$35 billion in 2019. The revenue is projected to grow to around US$73 billion for global SVOD and TVOD online video and US$43 billion for global AVOD online video in 2023, reaching an overall market size of ~US$120 billion for streaming video entertainment.
To capture the growing online video entertainment market, over the last several years, many traditional entertainment companies have merged and/or acquired one another, leading to an increasingly consolidated big media landscape controlled by only a handful of companies [5]. These platforms offer a wide array of content, but in each case they exercise full editorial control over which content is made available on the service; there is no creator “right” to be published on Netflix, for instance. This centralized control and “censorship” by the large distribution platforms left many high quality films unable to get discovered or distributed. The problem is exemplified by Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the United States. Each year, Sundance Film Festival receives around 13,000 feature and short films submissions, where only around 200 feature and short films get selected and around 100 eventually get a distribution deal [6].
Even “user generated content”-driven companies such as YouTube have large and well-paid content acquisition teams spending top dollar to attract the likes of the original Cobra Kai TV series to its platform and - more troublingly - have even begun to censor and ‘hide’ content and creators that it deems - in its sole discretion of course - not worthy of an audience on YouTube [7].
For these platforms, control over the content also means control over their users - particularly the extremely valuable user data each user generates on viewing habits, including both content and ads, subscription tendencies / retention rates, and dozens of other metrics. The cumulative value of such data over the years, and their unique ability to exploit it, has made the technology-based incumbents such as Netflix and Amazon particularly powerful as compared with their less data-savvy competitors from traditional media.
Therefore, the video streaming industry urgently needs innovation that brings community, transparency and trust back to the creative and fan communities.
While the market for video streaming services in general is robust and competitive, BitMovio’s gamified approach and focus on user community and interactivity enables it to stand out amongst its peers.
The existing video streaming ecosystem has already been bifurcated into two distinct “lanes”: the SVOD (subscription video-on demand) lane and the AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) lane. Neither of these two lanes, however, provide users or content creators with the level of interactivity, engagement and choice that we believe Millennials and younger audiences will demand from video streaming services going forward. Therefore, we believe a 3rd lane will emerge in video streaming - Freemium Video Streaming. This will be a massive opportunity - perhaps even larger than SVOD and AVOD combined when all is said and done - to introduce proven, highly-profitable gamification techniques of the kind perfected by Epic Games in Fortnite into video streaming.
From a competitive standpoint, to date only Amazon-owned Twitch has embraced even a few of these elements, through their in-platform Twitch Bits virtual currency and their occasional live broadcast content marathons, among other things. However, Twitch has built a very narrow audience focused primarily around Esports - which is an attractive vertical but only one vertical nonetheless. Twitch’s attempts at broadening its content outside of Esports have been met with failure to date - in part because of the difficulty the company has had attempting to negotiate content licenses with Hollywood given its ownership by Amazon which, among other things, creates expectations among major content owners that Twitch will pay Amazon-level license fees for its content, notwithstanding its much smaller footprint and content budget (not to mention complete separation from the Amazon content buying team as a matter of internal corporate politics).
BitMovio is therefore well-positioned to assume a position of leadership in this third lane. Our service will provide users levels of engagement and interactivity, along with gamification tools such as microtransactions, leaderboards, tipping/gifting and the like, which are virtually nonexistent in the video streaming industry today. Our content partners will benefit from the transparency, authenticity and immediacy our Blockchain-based platform provides in terms of payments, data access and reporting / analytics on content performance, while enjoying direct access to their biggest fans for engagement and crowdfunding purposes, among others. They will not be censored as in the case of paranormal creators on YouTube, nor will they be unduly favored at the platform level at the expense of other creators (as both Twitch and YouTube arguably have done in recent years with respect to Esports streamers). Our platform supports any type of content, and over time we expect to broaden our offering to include almost every conceivable content category, but we will focus initially on our core audience of Millennials and Gen Z early adopters in targeting content partners across a wide swath of relevant content verticals, including sci-fi, horror, paranormal / conspiracy, action, Esports, and others. We will accomplish all of this with a world-class team of technologists and industry experts in blockchain, gaming, content, and cryptocurrency. The future of video streaming is BitMovio, which provides a gamified streaming service for the Fortnite generation.
There are a number of players that are currently using blockchain for video delivery. This includes protocol level players and application level players. The protocol providers, such as Theta Labs, Steem and Lbry, are not necessarily directly competitive to BitMovio. In fact, BitMovio uses the Theta protocol, as an example, for distributing streams. The application level players are closer to what BitMovio does, but given our hybrid, gamified model, we are not entirely reliant on blockchain adoption, which hamstrings the blockchain based video players. Moreover, our combination of virtual currency and digital tokens is unique in the industry.
Our direct-to-consumer gamified video streaming platform is based on a freemium business model. We license content from premium independent studios and YouTube networks. We also enable independent film producers and streamers to directly publish content on the BitMovio platform. Content creators have complete freedom in choosing the monetization model of their content, including:
The revenue model for the above-mentioned business models is revenue-sharing which is currently set as 80:20. For each dollar/token spent by advertisers via advertising for free content or by consumers via tipping/gifting, microtransaction, subscription, or prepayment on the platform, the content creators will receive 80% of the revenue generated and BitMovio will capture the remaining 20% as our net revenue to fund our operations.
Besides our direct-to-consumer platform offering, we are also offering our gamified white-label streaming solution to larger content providers to power their direct-to-consumer product (a.k.a., next generation gamified BAMTech to Disney). Our target customers for our white-label solution are medium to large content providers who want to reach directly their loyal fan base. Our gamified white-label solution has unique advantages compared to existing service providers which can only support subscription or advertising-based models. The business model for our white-label solution is upfront payment (license fee) plus recurring revenue-sharing.
BitMovio was founded in the summer of 2018 originated from the Play Labs @MIT and has raised around $1.2M in venture funding from top-tier venture firms and angel investors in the Silicon Valley, New York and Boston. We released our open beta product in web, iOS app and Android app forms in March 2019, which was covered by leading technology publication VentureBeat.
Our product is currently in open-beta and accessible via:
For our direct-to-consumer gamified video streaming platform, we need to build strong community support for both content creators and consumers to ensure the long-term success of BitMovio ecosystem. Our platform supports any type of content, but we will focus initially on our core audience of Millennials and Gen Z early adopters in targeting content partners across a wide swath of relevant content verticals, including sci-fi, horror, paranormal / conspiracy, action, Esports, and others.
For premium and large-scale content partners, we will leverage our strong networks and the connections of our founders and advisors in the Hollywood and international content ecosystem to acquire early adopters. So far, we have successfully onboarded World Poker Tour, Endemol Shine Group, Gunpowder & Sky, Diagonal View (the digital content arm of Sky, now owned by Comcast), The Young Turks and more. Leveraging the strong endorsements from those early adopters/innovators and the media buzz associated with our innovative gamified platform for the next generation of video consumers, we can continue the momentum to onboard additional premium studios including MGM, Sony and Warner, among others, as well as additional YouTube multi-channel networks such as Jukin Media, to name one.
For individual and independent content creators, we will leverage word-of-mouth and influencer marketing from our early adopters in specific verticals that are currently unfavored or demonetized in the YouTube ecosystem. We also expand our presence at and, where feasible, sponsor trade shows such as VidCon to build our brand among the content creator community to help generate additional inbound leads.
To increase consumer adoption of the BitMovio platform, a variety of creative marketing tactics will be leveraged to acquire users in North America and Asia.
Our gamified video streaming white-label solution relies on the success and demonstration of our direct-to-consumer gamified platform as the future of video entertainment. With the enhanced media exposure of BitMovio in both traditional media and blockchain media, together with the challenges facing by literally all of the content creators and our founders and advisors’ network in the conventional media space, we have been in discussion with a variety of partners to leverage BitMovio’s gamified video streaming infrastructure to power their next-generation direct-to-consumer solution to more effectively engage with their fans and monetize the content.
Since inception, we have gained wide adoption among the content community including premium film studios, production companies, TV networks, independent film producers, YouTube networks, and individual streamers. We have acquired and onboarded 6,500+ hours of content to date from several notable partners including:
TheOutpost, a sci-fi television series which is currently aired on The CW network in the US and distributed international by Syfy, an American cable network owned by the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group.
WorldPokerTour (WPT), the premier name in internationally televised gaming and entertainment with brand presence in land-based tournaments, television, online, and mobile.
Endemol Shine International, a global television production power house with a portfolio of over 61,000 hours of owned and third-party programming across scripted and non-scripted genres.
Gunpowder & Sky, an award-winning independent global studio dedicated to creating, marketing and distributing video content unrestricted by form, genre or platform. Gunpowder & Sky collaborates with both emerging and established talent to generate premium video content ranging from 90-second to 90-minute stories on all platforms.
Diagonal View, a YouTube-focused multi-channel network owned by Sky Broadcasting (a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation), Diagonal View has a dedicated online audience of over 15 million subscribers.
The Young Turks, the largest online news and talk network for the connected generation. The award-winning TYT is one of the top multi-platform online content creators, generating over 200 million views a month.
In addition, many top individual creators on YouTube working in the paranormal genre such as Forbidden Knowledge News, Jimmy Church, and the Top 5s, among others, who collectively reach several millions of subscribers, have begun distributing their content on BitMovio because YouTube has unilaterally decided to de-monetize their channels, effectively making it impossible for them to generate revenue from their content on YouTube’s platform. This illustrates yet another example of the harmful impact on content creators that centralized distribution platforms can impose through bias and editorial censorship. We anticipate that through this factor alone, BitMovio will be able to attract and retain hundreds of additional individual content creators with significant audiences who feel stifled or otherwise limited by their reliance on YouTube for distribution and monetization.
Since BitMovio is a freemium platform, consumers do not need to register an account to consume free content and preview a portion of paid content without creating an account; however, they need to login in order to interact and engage with content creators and the BitMovio community. We have started consumer user acquisition recently after having onboarded all of the aforementioned signed content partners. Thus far, we have over 14,000 registered users and approaching 50,000 Monthly Active Users (MAU) with average daily user engagement time of over 20 minutes on our Mobile apps, which is on par with leading social video platforms [1].
For content partners, our core KPI is hours of content available on the platform and number of content creators/channels on the platform.
For users, our core KPI is focusing on engagement, which includes metrics such as registered users, average daily user engagement time, and number of transactions executed on the platform.
From April 2019 after launch to October 2019:
We have assembled an outstanding team with decades of experience in software, blockchain, video technology, gaming, eSports, content production and licensing, and traditional and new media with multiple successful exits in M&A and IPOs in North America and Asia. This includes alumni and professors of Stanford and MIT, Oscar winning film-makers, and alumni from companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Endemol Shine Group, NBCU, THX, CBS, Fox, The Walt Disney Company, Facebook, CoinBase, etc.
Simon Zhu has more than 10 years of experience in the technology and media industries. His most recent role was as Executive Board Director and SVP of Product Management at Vobile Group, a company which was awarded an Emmy Award in Technology in 2017 for its achievements related to video identification technology used to protect content value and copyright. Vobile Group has provided content protection and monetization solutions to many global content providers including Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros, and Viacom/Paramount, and was successfully listed in the main board of Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2018. Earlier, Simon was Research Scientist in the Telecommunication industry with over 20+ academic publications, 1 book chapter and 1 patent. Simon holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a Master of Science degree from McMaster University in Canada, and a Bachelor of Applied Science degree from Peking University in China.
Jerry Kowal has previously worked in senior executive operating capacities at content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Endemol Shine Group, and CBS. Additionally, he was Managing Director at a private entertainment consultancy firm where he worked with Twitch to develop the company’s first content licensing strategy outside of gaming/eSports. During his time at Netflix, Jerry oversaw the annual budget for the United States and Canada and licensed some of the most-viewed content on Netflix from every major film studio and TV network in the world. Jerry holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Juris Doctor (JD) and Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degrees from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.
In addition to his role at BitMovio, Rizwan Virk also holds the Executive Director position at PlayLabs @ MIT, an incubator/accelerator program for startups affiliated with MIT that use “playful technologies.” Riz has also been a member of the founding teams of companies like Theta Labs, Tapjoy, and Gameview Studios and was an early investor in a host of gaming and blockchain companies. Virk is the founder of Bayview Films and has executive produced many independent films. Riz holds a Masters of Science in Management from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science&EngineeringfromMIT.
Bill Guttentag has been a lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business since 2001. He directed the theatrical documentary Nanking and Soundtrack for a Revolution, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2007 and Cannes Film Festival in 2009, respectively. He previously won an Oscar for Best Documentary with his HBO film You Don't Have to Die (1989), and a second Oscar for Best Documentary Short for the documentary Twin Towers (2003).
Sheau Ng has more than 20 years of experience in C-level and senior management in media and technology companies. He specializes in corporate strategy, technology innovation, IP, and industry standards and policy issues dealing with digital media and consumer electronics.
Namrata Ganatra previously worked as Senior Director of Engineering at Coinbase, CTO for Stockpile and Head of Engineering for Payments at Facebook.
David Lee was one of the first 200 Google employees and later co-founded XG Ventures and SK Telecom Ventures. He partnered with director Michael Bay in 2015 at 451 Media to lead tech and media investments and partnerships.
Sean Stone has a multitude of acting and directing credits and currently hosts the show Watching the Hawks on RT America. He also co-hosts the weekly Internet news talk show Buzzsaw on The Lip TV.
Mitch Liu is CEO and founder of blockchain-based content delivery platform Theta Networks and eSports platform Sliver.tv.
Tory Green has a background in investment and entrepreneurship in mobile and digital media and is currently Partner at US-based VC firm Tiller Partners. He previously worked at 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company.
Sinhae Lee is Partner at blockchain and cryptocurrency fund GBIC and blockchain consultancy firm Block72. She has previous Silicon Valley experience in FinTech and blockchain where she worked at companies like Coin and NerdWallet.
If the offering's maximum amount of $500,001 is raised:
| Use | Value | % of Proceeds |
|---|---|---|
| Research & Development | $166,426 | 33.3% |
| Content Funding & Partnership | $142,650 | 28.5% |
| Marketing & User Acquisition | $95,100 | 19.0% |
| Admin & Operations | $71,325 | 14.3% |
| Intermediary fees | $24,500 | 4.9% |
This is an offering of Common Stock, under registration exemption 4(a)(6), in BitMovio, Inc.. This offering must raise at least $10,000 by March 2, 2020 at 12:00am ET. If this offering doesn’t reach its target, then your money will be refunded. BitMovio, Inc. may issue additional securities to raise up to $500,001, the offering’s maximum.
If the offering is successful at raising the maximum amount, then the company’s implied valuation after the offering (sometimes called its post-money valuation) will be:
These financial statements have been reviewed by an independent Certified Public Accountant.
The Offering Statement is a formal description of the company and this transaction. It’s filed with the SEC to comply with the requirements of exemption 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act of 1933.
Be sure to understand the risks of this type of investment. No regulatory body (not the SEC, not any state regulator) has passed upon the merits of or given its approval to the securities, the terms of the offering, or the accuracy or completeness of any offering materials or information posted herein. That’s typical for Regulation CF offerings like this one.
Neither Netcapital nor any of its directors, officers, employees, representatives, affiliates, or agents shall have any liability whatsoever arising from any error or incompleteness of fact or opinion in, or lack of care in the preparation or publication of, the materials and communication herein or the terms or valuation of any securities offering.
The information contained herein includes forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or to future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which are, in some cases, beyond the company’s control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects the current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to operations, results of operations, growth strategy, and liquidity. No obligation exists to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
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