RTÉ: Showtime Secures €1.2 million Investment

Original article appeared on rte.ie, available here.

RTÉ Coverage: Dublin cinema start-up Showtime secures €1.2 million Alibaba investment

Dublin cinema start-up Showtime has secured €1.2 million funding from a subsidiary of Chinese company Alibaba Pictures.

The joint venture will see Showtime and Alibaba Pictures’ owned Yueke/Finixx collaborate to develop products specific to the Chinese cinema industry.

The investment is only Alibaba Pictures’ second ever outside China and the first by its subsidiary.

The Blackrock-based Showtime was founded in 2014 by Richie Power and Joe Spurling from Greystones, Wicklow and Paul Lynch from Dublin, and employs 30 people.

It provides data analytics products and services to cinema owners and film distributors, allowing them to collate, analyse and visualise their operational data in real time to deliver insights that can drive improved business performance.

Showtime CEO Richie Power said the business “is about more than just helping cinemas sell more tickets. Data analysis is in its infancy in the movie industry, but its potential value is huge.

“In recent years, video-on-demand has stolen a significant march on the cinema industry as the likes of Netflix knows more about its customers and they are using this to their advantage.

“We want to help cinema owners and film distributors to unlock the potential of their data and help them understand more about the types of films being made, how they're being made and marketed, and how audiences are responding to them.”

Mr Spurling’s family co-owns and manages the Movies@ cinema group, which Showtime utilised to test its technology platform.

Read full article here.