Magisto Continues Its Juggernaut Through Mobile Video: Announces Investment From Russian Internet Giant Mail.Ru Group; Doubles Registrants To 20mm Users

NEW YORK, Feb. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Magisto, the cloud-based mobile video platform, has started 2014 like a juggernaut, attracting strategic investments from leading global players, acquiring millions of users in the year's first months, and demonstrating to the market that it's building a commanding lead over rivals in consumer experience, technology and market position.

The company today announced a $2 million investment from Mail.Ru Group, the Russian Internet pioneer and one of the world's largest Internet companies. In addition, Magisto has integrated its offering into Odnoklassniki, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mail.Ru Group and the second largest social network in Russia, reaching 33 million daily unique visitors.

"This investment and the integration with one of the world's largest social networks reflect the universal appeal of Magisto: namely, that sharing experiences, emotion and stories is a basic human impulse, regardless of geography and language," said Oren Boiman, CEO of Magisto. "When you combine that elemental need with the ubiquity of the smartphone and the simplicity of Magisto, you arrive at the powerful nexus that is catapulting our company."

In recent months, Mail.Ru Group (LSE: MAIL) has expanded its global product and service portfolio, including launching its subsidiary, My.com, an integrated communication and entertainment platform based in California, and has made investments in dozens of startup companies.

"Mail.Ru Group has always focused on pushing the envelope with new technology and products that meet the evolving needs of our users," said Mor Yegerman, Head of International M&A at Mail.Ru Group. "As we continue to look beyond the Russian market and think more globally, Magisto perfectly maps to that innovation-focused vision. Their growth has been impressive and we expect Odnoklassniki users to fall in love with it as millions already have."

In a market that has seen many big name technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, introduce video products this year, Magisto continues to innovate on technology and to acquire users at a breakneck pace.

The company also announced that it has surpassed 20 million registered users and is now acquiring two million users per month. The company has more than doubled its registered users since September 2013, when it announced it had reached 10 million users. In March 2013, the company had only five million users.

The company revealed that users are uploading 29 million videos and photos per month. Interestingly, 20 percent of these movies are made up of photos only, taking advantage of the recently launched "photos-only" feature.  Movie views per month have reached 18 million a month, and sharing is distributed across the social graph, with Facebook as the most popular.  Email is still a popular mode of sharing for 30 percent of users.

The Mail.Ru Group investment is designed to fuel even further growth, and to bear the kind of customer acquisition fruit for the company that Magisto's Qualcomm relationship has already borne on the technology and product side. Last fall, Magisto received another strategic investment from Qualcomm Ventures and SanDisk Ventures.  And just earlier this month, Magisto unveiled CamCrew, a new technology for mobile devices on Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset that automates even more of the video-making process.

About Magisto
Driven by artificial intelligence and simple user experience, Magisto is a cloud-based mobile technology service for creating and sharing beautiful quality personal movies. It automatically selects the most compelling moments from ordinary videos and photos and, like an expert video editor, weaves them together to convey a story with customized styles and music. Magisto is used by millions of customers and can be accessed across iOS, Android and the Web, and is the highest-rated video creation app in the Google Play and iOS App Stores.

More information is available at http://www.magisto.com/about and http://www.magisto.com/how-it-works.

The company is funded by Horizons Ventures, Magma Venture Partner, Qualcomm Incorporated, through its venture capital arm, Qualcomm Ventures, and SanDisk Ventures. The company maintains its headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel with offices in New York and California.

About Mail.Ru Group
Mail.Ru Group (LSE: MAIL, listed since November 5, 2010) is a leading Internet company in the high-growth Russian-speaking Internet markets (Russia is Europe's largest Internet market measured by the number of users, comScore). Mail.Ru Group's sites reach approximately 85% of Russian Internet users on a monthly basis (comScore, June 2013) and the Company is the sixth largest Internet businesses globally, based on the number of total pages viewed (comScore, June 2013).

In line with the 'communitainment' (communication plus entertainment) strategy, the Company is moving rapidly to build an integrated communications and entertainment platform. The Company owns Russia's leading email service and Russia's largest internet portal, Mail.Ru (TNS, all Russia, age 12-64, June 2013). The Company operates two of the three largest Russian language social networks, Odnoklassniki (OK) and Moi Mir (My World), and Russia's largest online game business. The Company's portfolio also includes Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ – two instant messaging services popular in Russia and CIS.

The Company holds minority equity stakes in VKontakte (39.99%) and Qiwi (10.4%). The Company also holds a number of small venture capital investments in various Internet companies in Russia and Ukraine.

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SOURCE Magisto