DIY internet video maker straddles US as £3m deal looms

Published on Sunday 1 January 2012 00:00

A SCOTTISH online video maker will open offices on America’s east and west coasts in the New Year as it prepares to seal a £3 million funding deal.

Glasgow-based Moviecom.tv, set up in 2007 by husband-and-wife team Kev and Gillian O’Neil, has signed a business development manager in New York and is recruiting a second for California.

The firm also plans to open a base in London as demand rises for its video websites, which allow clients to run their own online television channels. Customers can upload video clips from their mobile phones or computers to the sites, which then also carry advertising.

Sister company 29 Studios, at which the O’Neils’ daughter now works, also provides professionally made videos.

Gillian O’Neil said she had been in talks with investors in Scotland, London and the United States regarding funding to expand Moviecom.tv and that she expected to seal a deal soon. She added: “Since we launched the self-service scheme in June we’ve had a huge response, with 2,200 customers signing up to use the service. That compares with just 100 companies in Scotland who we made sites for before the changeover.”

O’Neil said that brothers Vincent and Kevin Moore, whose businesses include Johnstone Bakeries, had pumped in £500,000 of seed funding to the business over the past four years.

The company is receiving support from Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International and recently took part in a trade mission to the United States, organised by UK Trade & Investment.

It is forming links with video-making firms in other countries and signing up clients overseas, including the Canadian arm of office supplies company Staples.

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