Fandango Buys Movieclips from Zefr

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Fandango, a movie information and ticket-purchasing website owned by Burbank’s NBCUniversal, has acquired the 45,000-item Movieclips catalog from Venice ad services firm Zefr.

In addition to its website, Movieclips operates 25 YouTube channels that garner 200,000 million video views a month. The network’s catalog includes film clips, trailers and original video productions. It has 7 million subscribers.

Los Angeles’ Fandango plans to feature the newly acquired video content across its online and mobile platforms.

Fandango President Paul Yanover said in a statement that the deal “will provide consumers an even better way to explore and share their passion for the movies.”

Zefr’s core business involves convincing content creators to keep movie clips online even though they were posted on YouTube without permission. Then it attaches ads to them. Because the studios own the videos, they take the lion’s share of the resulting ad revenue. Zefr is ramping up the number of videos it licenses, with a planned expansion into TV shows and sports highlights.

It launched the Movieclips brand five years ago as it sought to connect YouTube users with film studios’ content.

“Movieclips played a key role in helping develop Zefr,” said co-founder Rich Raddon, “And we’re thrilled to be sending it to Fandango where it will continue to be utilized and enjoyed on such a large scale.”

Zefr hired two new ad executives last week and raised $30 million in a February financing round led by Institutional Venture Partners that included participation from existing investors U.S. Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital and Richmond Park Partners.