Recast, the Edinburgh-based “fintech-for-media” platform, has announced the closing of a $5 million funding round.
This round was led by Los Angeles-based venture capital firm Morpheus Ventures, with additional investments from Airstream Ventures and Cooley.
The Series Seed round follows Content Technology Partners Limited acquiring the tangible and intangible assets of Recast Sports Ltd from administrators in October 2023.
“In its mission to give consumers access to any digital content while ensuring fair and immediate value exchange for everyone involved, Recast’s innovative technology enables media owners to maximise distribution, monetisation, and 1st party data capture thereby offsetting rising subscription fatigue and churn,” said Recast.
“The investment will support further development of Recast’s API-centric smart payment platform and enhance its micro-payment wallet, facilitating the sale of digital commodities anywhere on the internet, beyond its current offering that supports monetising video and live streams.”
Morpheus Ventures managing partner Joseph Miller said: “Much like Shopify revolutionised e-commerce with its versatile platform, Recast is set to transform digital content monetisation and distribution.
“This transformation is supported by Recast’s advanced smart payment platform and micro-payment wallet, which offer a level of flexibility and immediacy akin to PayPal.
“With our extensive knowledge and experience in the media sector, we are confident that Recast has developed the right product at the right time.”
Airstream Ventures, founded by Gavin Petken, former Head of Investments at Business Growth Fund, and Ed Woodward, former Executive Vice-Chairman of Manchester United, has also bolstered its initial investment in Recast.
“Recast’s proven data capture and monetisation capabilities made our decision easy,” said Petken.
“With over 40% of the world’s population under 24 years of age, expanding leisure time, and a shift to direct-to-consumer models, particularly in sports, Recast’s model excels.
“With conversion rates of over 15% from destination landing to cash, Recast’s solution enables rights owners to quickly and seamlessly unlock latent value from customers.
“Recast will no doubt establish itself as a core enabling technology and is therefore a perfect fit for the Airstream Ventures portfolio.”
Recast CEO Andy Meikle said: “Our fundamental belief has always been to ensure universal access to content while ensuring fair and immediate value exchange for everyone involved.
“However, our approach has evolved. What began as a streaming service has now transformed into a dynamic fintech platform for the entire media industry.
“At the heart of what we do is making it as simple as possible for media owners to quickly generate revenue and capture meaningful data without the acquisition costs, while consumers enjoy seamless and affordable access to content.
“With Cooleys’ legal prowess, Airstream Ventures’ deep connections in sports, media, and entertainment and Morpheus Ventures’ impressive track record, experience, and extensive network, particularly in the US, I know we have the right strategic ingredients to realise our vision.”
The Recast board will now be composed of Andy Meikle, Joseph Miller of Morpheus Ventures and Gavin Petken of Airstream Ventures, along with several independent industry and sector experts, including Scott Guglielmino (COO X-Games) and Drew Larner (Founding CEO of Rdio).