Keek raises $7M for social video network

Toronto-based Cranson Capital Securities leads round

I have to admit. I'm not one to share that much about myself (personally), particularly in video. But as Bob Dylan has sang, "Times, they are a changing."

Keek is a social video network that lets people upload video snippets of just about anything from their mobile phones. It's a bit like Twitter but what's shared isn't 140-character Tweets, but rather 36-second Keeks. Toronto-based Keek announced Tuesday that it's raised $7 million for its social video network from Toronto-based Cranson Capital Securities, as well as Pinetree Capital and Whitecap Venture Partners. 

Since launching in July 2011 on the Web, and on mobile in March of this year, Keek has seen 6.4 million videos uploaded, two million created in August alone, and 250 million pageviews and 21 million visits in August. The company is also approaching 10 million members sharing their interests via video.

"We're a complete social networking platform where people communicate using short structured videos," said Isaac Raichyk, CEO of Keek.

The company limits the video sharing to 36 seconds partly to save on the cost of delivering videos, but also because most people don't want to see long videos, said Raichyk.  

So who's using this and for what? The demographic is young, which isn't surprising. And, the use cases run the gamut of people video-taping themselves to video-taping their baby smiling. Once a person uploads a video, they can share with their friends or fans on Facebook. A person can also attract followers. Some users have 250,000 followers, which suggests that Keek is starting to be used as a way for celebrities to interact with their fans. 

But can't they do this on Twitter, you ask. Yes. They can upload videos and photos and obviously text. But Keek allows users to create a dialogue around one video. So a person can upload a video, and others can comment via video or text and those interactions are attached to the video, and not lost in a stream of new videos and texts. 

Keek does remind me a bit of Seesmic, which was recently sold and had multiple business models. But Seesmic started off as a video Twitter. What makes Keek different?  

"My impression is they were too early," said Raichyk. "They were trying to do short videos before the iPhone... Clearly the ability to capture moments of your life or your message using the mobile devices is key to the success of this kind of a platform."