Rakuten, a Japanese retailer, acquired the online video and subtitling site Viki for about $200 million, according to AllThingsD. The site solicits its users to add subtitles to videos, in effect crowdsourcing its effort to translate videos into new languages.
The Singapore-based Viki had raised money from venture capital firms including Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Charles River Ventures and Neoteny Labs, according to its website.
Rakuten has been following a path blazed by U.S. online retailers like Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) into digital content distribution, first with its acquisition of Canada-based Kobo, an e-reader platform, and now with Viki.
"Viki is a one-of-a-kind company with an entirely unique approach to video streaming that is truly global and truly engaging," Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani told the Wall Street Journal.
For more:
- AllThingsD had this story
- the Wall Street Journal had this story (sub. req.)
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