PixelFish picks up $4 million for local biz videos

Bullpen Capital leads third round for video production and advertising company

Video production and advertising company PixelFish announced this week that it has closed a $4 million round of funding led by Bullpen Capital with participation from current investors Floodgate and Mack Capital, along with new investors Tomorrow Ventures, 500 Startups and Western Tech.

The company previously raised a $2.1 million round in December and a $1.4 million Series A in October.

PixelFish, which specifically targets small to medium-sized local and national businesses, offers customizable video solutions for advertising and promotional purposes. Employing over 4,000 professional videographers the world over, PixelFish goes the distance so that it can film original video content wherever local businesses are.

"We strongly believe that online video will continue its upward trajectory as a critical business-building tool for local businesses,” said Duncan Davidson of Bullpen Capital.  “Video delivers better click-thru’s, and every local business will need a video presence on the web”

Interestingly, the video company has been making a social media marketing push as well.

Any local business that pays PixelFish for the premium plan, either $379 monthly for montage video or $429 monthly for original video, also gets some social media treatment as well. In other words, it gets a Facebook and Twitter account. The plan sans social media costs either $225 and $299, respectively.

More evidence of PixelFish's social media push was its acquisition of online directory Backyard, which uses social media data to better surface local business data.

Dipping into the social media market is a strong strategy, especially since the company targets local business. A recent study found that 71.4 percent of local businesses prefer social marketing as their primary marketing channel, versus 57.9 percent who like organic search marketing.

Social media is the buzzworthy option these days, but video is always a powerful promotional component to any brand’s campaign. Bringing the two together gives PixelFish leverage.

With three new growing funding rounds in less than a year, PixelFish must be doing pretty well for itself. Company partners now include Google, LexisNexis and Yellowbook.

The new capital will be used to drive development, sales and marketing.