2007–2012: Early years Viki was founded in 2007 by
Razmig Hovaghimian, Changseong Ho and Jiwon Moon. The company moved to Singapore in 2008 to take advantage of government backing and the
city-state's role as a
pan-Asian hub. In December 2010, Viki exited the beta phase of its
software and made its services available to the general public. It was purchased by Rakuten in 2013. In September 2011, Viki debuted a new
iPhone app called Viki On-The-Go, allowing users to watch content on their
smartphones. The company also partnered with
Samsung Southeast Asia that year to develop an
Android app. Viki.com drew 14 million unique views in August 2011. Viki raised $20 million from
Greylock Partners,
Andreessen Horowitz, and
BBC Worldwide in October of that year. In that same month, BBC Worldwide announced an extension of its relationship with Viki, including a deal to work with the company on
advertising.
2013–present: Purchase by Rakuten In the year following its acquisition by Japanese technology
conglomerate Rakuten in 2013, Viki went from about 22 million
monthly active users with 10 million on mobile to 35 million monthly active users and 25 million mobile users. The company has a list of partners for sourcing original content, including BBC Worldwide. The company has also signed distribution deals for its original content with Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo!,
MSN,
NBC, and
A&E, as well as
TVB in
Hong Kong,
SBS in South Korea,
Fuji TV in Japan and
Amedia in Russia. ==Services==