In 2008, Crunchyroll secured a capital investment of $4.05 million from the venture capital firm Venrock. The investment drew criticism from anime distributors and licensors Bandai Entertainment and Funimation as the site continued to allow users to upload illegal copies of licensed titles.

However, Crunchyroll eventually began securing legal distribution agreements with companies, including Gonzo, for an increasing number of titles. On January 8, 2009, after announcing a deal with TV Tokyo to host episodes of Naruto Shippuden, Crunchyroll stated that it was committed to removing all copyright infringing material from its site and to hosting only content to which it had legitimate distribution rights.

The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in Tel Aviv and New York. Metacafe is privately held and its investors include Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and Highland Capital Partners.

Metacafe is similar to other video viewing websites such as YouTube or Dailymotion, but with several differences. Core differentiators include duplication elimination, a different type of Adult content filtering, a community member reviewer panel, VideoRank, and Producer Rewards. Its VideoRank system gauges viewer reactions to videos in order to feature those that prove most popular to its viewers. Additionally, Metacafe pays video creators for original work that has exceeded a certain threshold of both total views and VideoRank score through its Producer Rewards Program.
The site features short-form videos in a variety of categories, including Animation, Comedy, Entertainment, How To, News and Events, People and Stories, Sports, Video Games and others. Original content is uploaded to the site by independent video creators, small to mid-sized production groups, and major media companies.

From the Website

Metacafe is one of the world’s largest video sites, attracting more than 40 million unique viewers each month (comScore Media Metrix). We specialize in short-form original content – from new, emerging talents and established Hollywood heavyweights alike. We’re committed to delivering an exceptional entertainment experience, and we do so by engaging and empowering our audience every step of the way.

Since 2003 Metacafe has been one of the top independent online video sites, and we’re a leader in the evolution of digital entertainment. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in Tel Aviv and New York. Metacafe is privately held and investors include Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and Highland Capital Partners.

How is Metacafe different?

Metacafe is not a video sharing and hosting site that allows any and every video to be posted. Instead, Metacafe is a video entertainment site that focuses on:

1. Short-form – Metacafe specializes in short-form original video – content that is made for the interactive Internet medium. We don’t have full-length television episodes or movies chopped into pieces. The average video on our site is just over 90 seconds long. People come to Metacafe looking for an entertainment break in their day – and we deliver.
2. Entertainment – We’re all about entertaining a large audience by featuring only those videos that amaze, inspire and make viewers laugh. This means you won’t find hard news stories, personal videos or webcam chatter on Metacafe.
3. Audience-driven – The Metacafe experience is determined entirely by our community. Videos are user-generated, user-selected, user-reviewed and user-rewarded. At Metacafe, we put the audience in the driver’s seat, empowering viewers in a much more meaningful way than other video sites.
   • Community Auditions – A community review panel of more than 80,000 volunteers takes a first look at each of the thousands of videos submitted to the site every day.
   • Community Rankings – Our VideoRank™ system identifies and exposes the most popular videos by automatically gauging every interaction each viewer has with a video.
   • Community Rewards – Our Producer Rewards™ program pays video creators for their best original work, as determined by the viewers.

What does this all add up to? A better entertainment experience. We consistently hear from our viewers that it’s easier to find videos they like on our site as compared to others – and that keeps them coming back for more.

Other Information

• Type : Private
• Founded : July 2002
• Headquarters : Palo Alto, CA, United States
• Key people : Erick Hachenburg, CEO, Eyal Hertzog, Founder and CCO
  Eran Pilovski, CFO Jack Rotherham, SVP of Strategic Sales and
• Partnerships :  David Rice, VP of Product, Yaron Finkel, VP of R&D, Scott Bushman, VP of Business Development
• Industry : Online video entertainment
• Slogan : Video Entertainment, Powered by You
• Registration : Optional (required to upload, comment on, rate, and review videos)
• Available in : English, Spanish