International Video Site ViKi Debuts iPhone App, Will Partner With Samsung For Android App

ViKi, an international video site for world TV series and movies translated in 100+ languages by its community, is debuting a new iPhone app today, called ViKi On-The-Go.

As we’ve written in the past, ViKi is an open-source-like solution for video, and acquires the rights to TV shows and movies. The site then puts it on one of its channels and within the first 24 hours an organized, volunteer community subtitles the content using ViKi’s software. The site has gained considerable traction in the past year. Currently, ViKi is seeing 8.5 million unique visitors and 36 million tota visits in the past month, which is four times the traffic that ViKi has seen from last year.

One of the most wanted features, says the startup, is a mobile offering. The new app is free (with in-stream ads), and will contain TV series, movies, and entertainment news from around the world, with subtitles created by fans. The app currently includes movies from Japan, India’s Bollywood, Egypt, Indonesian and TV series from Hong Kong, Venezuela, Russia, Korea and the UK (e.g. Hotel Babylon & Mistresses from the BBC).

ViKi is also partnering up with Samsung Southeast Asia to develop an Android app for the company’s tablets. The app will be launching later this year in Southeast Asia. The partnership is expected to expand to other regions early next year.

What’s interesting about ViKi is that the model allows content owners to open up to new international markets. Investors have bet on ViKi’s model too—the company recently raised $4.3 million in funding from Saar Gur of Charles River Ventures, Reid Hoffman of Greylock, Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, and others.