Coub Raises $1 Million For 10 Second Music Videos

Coub, a Russian startup that lets fans create Vine/Instagram/Gif – like looped music videos from existing footage, has raised $1 million. The funding, the company's first outside infusion of cash, comes from two local veture capital firms, Brothers Ventures and Phenomen Ventures.

Coub let's uses upload videos from YouTube and Vimeo, cut them to 10 seconds and add music  Available globally, the site claims 8 million users, mostly in Russia, Coub videos can be embedded on sites or shared on social media. The 10 second limit is presumably to avoid paying royalties. Vine capped their videos at 6 seconds, a length which courts have upheld in the past.

Here's an example of a popular Coub:

“We discovered this media format and now we are observing its evolution,” Coub co-founder Anton Gladkoborodov told TechCrunch. “It already has traditions, own memes, genres and sub-formats. We made a tool that you can use in different ways. It could be an artistic tool, a way of self-expression and getting attraction. On the other hand, coubs also have a professional usage, for example, as an illustration in media, or as an animated photo on an online store.”