Coub.com, a Moscow-based startup launched in 2012, has just raised $2.5 million in a Series B round from Vaizra Capital, a fund which belongs to VKontakte co-founders Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Leviev. The startup did not disclose its valuation, but its representative told the Russian business daily Vedomosti that Vaizra got a minority stake.
Coub is a service for making short videos. With Coub’s online video editor users can extract an up to ten second long excerpt from a file or online hosting service (YouTube, Vimeo) and add audio.
Coub’s proprietary video player loops the resulting composition and makes it easy to share on social networks, blogs, and other websites.
The startup claims to have increased its traffic from 8 million unique users monthly one year ago to 50 million today.
One year ago, Coub raised $1 million from Phenomen Ventures and Brother Ventures, two Russian funds operating internationally.
