This is a big round for such a service: Mochila, the NYC-based online content marketplace startup, has received $8 million in second round funding. Charles River Ventures led the round, while Mochila’s previous investors Mission Ventures, The Greenspun Corporation, and Jerry Colonna also participated. The service launched in April last year, and sells print, audio, video, and photo content from about 100 publishing companies, including Hachette Filipacchi Media US, Hearst Magazines, New York Magazine, AP, L.A. Times/Washington Post News Service, MSNBC.com, CNET Networks and others.
The service allows sellers to set licensing rules, including pricing, embargoes, exclusions and other business terms. Besides paid content, Mochila also gives customers access to some content for free under its Mochila AdMatch ad revenue-sharing service. Under AdMatch, advertising revenue is split among the buyer, the content owner, and Mochila.
Red Herring: On the Mochila market, publishers get 70 percent on the sale of articles to buyers, with Mochila keeping 30 percent. With AdMatch revenue, rights owners get 40 percent, web publishers who acquire and republish get 30 percent, and Mochila takes 30 percent.
Of course, content marketplaces have been around for a while...Contentville was a famous example which didn’t work during the first Internet cycle. The specialized video marketplaces have emerged in the last year, and some independent text-based ones have also come out of the bloc.