Former Hulu chief Kilar raises another $58M for video start-up Vessel

Bolstering yet another online player competing in the pay-TV market, Vessel, the SVOD service launched by former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, has raised another $58 million in venture capital.

The subscription-based service, which launched in March with 165 channels' worth of short-form video, has raised $134 million to date. Vessel received more support in its B round from the same backers, led by Institutional Venture Partners. Greylock, Benchmark and Bezos Expeditions also contributed.

"If you had to back one team to build the world's most advanced and user friendly video platform, this would be the team," Todd Chaffee, a general partner at Institutional Venture Partners, wrote in a blog post announcing the funding round.

Kilar is seeking to shape Vessel into a kind of hybrid of YouTube and Netflix, taking the short-form ethos of the former and blending it with the SVOD business model of the latter.

The service was introduced with a base price of $2.99 a month.

For more:
- read this Bloomberg story
- read this Variety story
- read this CNN story

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