• Los Angeles-based venture capital fund, Morpheus Ventures, well known for backing transformative technology companies leads significant financing for Recast.
• $5 million funding includes further investment from Airstream Ventures, founded by Gavin Petken, former Head of Investments at Business Growth Fund and Ed Woodward, former Executive Vice-Chairman of Manchester United.
• Recast has evolved from a destination streaming platform into a cutting-edge embedded fintech solution, addressing the need for fair and immediate value exchange for rights holders, consumers and influencers through micro-payments.
• Leveraging first-party data capture, powerful network effect, and built-in referral incentives, Recast represents the next generation of digital content monetisation.
• The technology will soon allow extending capabilities beyond video to any digital commodities, enabling configurable rewards, and the integration of multiple digital currencies.

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PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: TUESDAY 9 JULY 2024 

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Recast, the pioneering Edinburgh-based fintech-for-media platform, has today announced the successful closing of a $5 million funding round. This round was led by the prominent US-based venture capital firm Morpheus Ventures, with additional investments from Airstream Ventures and Cooley.

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. 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, known for backing transformative technology companies, recognised Recast's potential to revolutionise the media fintech landscape. Speaking about the news Joseph Miller, Managing Partner of Morpheus Ventures 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. "Recast’s proven data capture and monetisation capabilities made our decision easy. 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." said Petken.

Having initially been founded as a destination streaming platform with cutting-edge payment technology, Recast’s solution now integrates into media owners’ own digital destinations. This funding will enable Recast to further develop its smart payment platform and micropayment wallet via an open API, extending capabilities beyond video to any digital assets, enabling configurable rewards, and the integration of multiple digital currencies.

Recast’s Proprietary Technology Includes:

• Smart Payment Platform: Manages pricing and media distribution effortlessly. Earnings are content asset-specific and received instantly by media owners and related parties directly from the consumer.
• Smart Syndication Engine: This powerful engine integrates Recast’s solution onto media owners’ platforms, significantly amplifying reach and revenues. By engaging athletes, influencers, and affiliates, the syndication engine ensures they instantly earn a fee from every sale generated via media they host or share, creating a robust, self-sustaining ecosystem of content distribution and monetisation.
• Innovative Digital Wallet: Establishes a value exchange between advertisers, content owners, and consumers, incentivising actions like survey participation or sharing content or data with brands and media owners. The wallet facilitates micropayments or single transactions directly and immediately to the content owner.

Andy Meikle, CEO of Recast, 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 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).

-ENDS-

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Follow-up Interviews 

Andy Meikle, Founder and CEO of Recast will be available for follow-up interviews on the morning of Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th July 2024.  

Please get in touch with Press@recast.tv to organise a one-to-one. 

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About Recast‍

Recast is a fintech and content syndication platform enabling media owners to maximise distribution while giving consumers access to their content via micropayments, with the value instantly received by everyone involved. Through Recast's proprietary technology, consumers can top up or earn value into their Recast wallet, which they use to make direct payments for media, while the media owners can set up, manage, and distribute content anywhere across the internet, knowing they maintain full control of their rights and instantly receive value for every view. The Series Seed round follows Content Technology Partners Limited acquiring the tangible and intangible assets of Recast Sports Ltd from administrators in October 2023. 

About Morpheus Ventures

Founded in 2016, Morpheus Ventures is one of the largest early-stage investors based in Los Angeles, investing in the disruption of large markets across the technology landscape from consumer to enterprise technologies including data analytics, machine learning, robotics, transportation, and SaaS. 

About Airstream Ventures

Airstream Ventures Limited (AVL) was founded by Gavin Petken, a senior executive with over 25 years of experience at three private equity firms, and Ed Woodward, a former corporate financier with JP Morgan and Executive Vice-Chairman of Manchester United. Leveraging access to unique deal opportunities, AVL invests in technologies, markets and management teams positioned to capitalise on the significant opportunities in sport, driven by the rapid developments in technology, geopolitics and demographics.

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Contact Information

For more information, please contact: 

Toni Blackhurst, Commercial and Marketing Director, Recast 

Press@recast.tv
www.recast.tv 

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