With just over one month to go until its official launch date, the short-form, subscription streaming service Quibi has closed on $750 million in new financing, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
The company declined to disclose exactly who invested in the new round (which is always a great sign) and didn’t comment on how the new investment would effect the company’s valuation.
Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman told the Journal that the new financing was made to ensure that the company would have the financial flexibility and runway to build a long-term business, but it’s likely that companies as diverse as Brandless and WeWork said the same thing about their goals when raising capital, as well.
Quibi, unlike some of the streaming services that it’s going to compete with, doesn’t have a back catalog of titles to tap to pad out the service, so it’s coming to market with a whopping 175 shows in its first year with 8,500 episodes, which run no longer than 10 minutes.
When it launches, there will be 50 shows on offer from the service. The service is also hoping to differentiate itself by dropping new episodes daily — rather than weekly releases common on network television or the season-long binges that Netflix encourages.
The app itself seems to be fairly undifferentiated from the services available from other streamers.
