Short video platform Firework raises $55 million in series A funding

The company said as of today, Firework has more than 450 million monthly views and has set out a larger mission to unite websites against the exploitative walled gardens and power the open web for the next 20 years.

When asked to elaborate the company says that in an Internet 2.0 model, simple business websites, while considered user experience in any communication strategy, rely far too heavily on driving their audiences off-site into alternative channels.

Tapping into this opportunity Firework’s tech enables any simple text and image-based website or ecommerce platform to deliver a social media like immersive and engaging experience with swipe-able, exciting, brand focused vertical short videos.

Jason Holland, President of Global Business, said, “Firework will power internet for the next 2 decades with vertical video web stories as a currency. As we upgrade and connect the global open web for Internet 3.0, publishers and businesses will leverage on another in creating a unified content consumption experience that’s never been made available. All of this is driven by Firework technology, content creation tools, e-commerce capabilities, monetisation innovation, and data-first capabilities. We will exceed 5 billion monthly views by Q4 2021.”

Nair further added, “Firework has created an ecosystem with which it is empowering both publishers and brands to independently be able to offer the best of social media without having to share user data and compromise on privacy issues. Our existing publishers and brands are deriving much more value in the form of engagement, stickiness for their own platform rather than contributing to the social media platforms."

From an India point of view, the company has ranked the country right top of its priority list and is planning to make India a hub for rolling out strategies and innovations.

Recently, Reliance Jio roped in Firework to offer vertical video stories to its 100 million-plus KaiOS users in India. Their other publisher partners include Airtel and VI, in addition to Google and other mainstream media publishers.