PublicVine aims to capture the attention of Internet giants like Google (YouTube), Apple (iTunes) and Netflix with its virtual video "marketplace". The start-up was founded and fostered over the past 10 years by Nigerian-born entrepreneur and telecoms maven, Nam Mokwunye.
The venture, positioned as an "online and mobile social video marketplace", enlists video vendors - which can then connect with consumers in a reciprocal relationship that sees both parties earning commission as videos are viewed and shared.
Set to launch globally, about a week before the 2014 Fifa World Cup kicks off in June, PublicVine is the brainchild of Mokwunye, now a resident of Florence, in Alabama, US.
The former Stanford fellow says PublicVine has been in the making - in shifting forms - for the past decade, and closed a Series A investment of $5 million to $10 million from a sole investor in December. That investor is Joel R Anderson, chairman of Anderson Media - a 97-year-old US corporation that distributes CDs and DVDs. "[Anderson] views PublicVine as being the future, with CDs and DVDs going under," says Mokwunye.
Big guns
Since 2007, says Mokwunye, he has been going full steam ahead with the virtual video project, with one of the main goals being to cultivate the already flourishing movie markets in Nigeria and SA to the end of bolstering GDP and creating jobs in the countries, which he says have a significant place in his heart.
Philanthropy aside, Mokwunye also hopes to beguile the world's established tech giants, which have pockets of cash to invest and an eye for strategic acquisition. "If I had the choice between competing in what would always be David and Goliath setup and selling to one of the Goliaths, I'd sell."
Mokwunye says the notion of competing head-on with the likes of Apple, which brings in over $100 billion a year in revenue, and YouTube - which has tech titan Google behind it, is unthinkable.
Where PublicVine is different to online video and movie outfits like YouTube, iTunes and Netflix, he says, is in its across-the-board earning potential. PublicVine allows both vendors and consumers to get paid, with vendors keeping 55% of each video rental or sale.
Consumers get a 10% invite commission, while PublicVine gets a 20% share of video rentals or sales, and a 10% invite commission. The base cost (bandwidth, storage and encoding) is 5% of the suggested price per buy.
"Vendors set their own prices for video rental and sales. PublicVine facilitates a transparent viral revenue-sharing between vendors and consumers," says Mokwunye.
The African-American, "with a compass for the African continent", says he is in discussions with telcos like Vodacom and MTN around establishing a marketing partnership, which would ostensibly make the video service available to the companies' subscription base in SA and the rest of Africa.
Run by Amazon Web Services, PublicVine is a 100% cloud-based service, so users cannot download content.
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