While Netflix and similar subscription video-on-demand (VoD) services are great for bulk-watching Breaking Bad-type “box sets” and seeking out classic movies and TV shows, finding good content to watch can be difficult. And this is where Mubi has been carving out its niche in recent years.
In the simplest terms, Mubi can best be described as like a Netflix specifically for indie, cult, and classic movies. With a human-curated approach and only 30 films available at any given time, Mubi is designed to make the decision-making process simpler for subscribers.
In 2015 and beyond, the London-headquartered company will be making a big push for your eyeballs in just about every domain, as it has just announced a $15m funding round, which comes less than three months after its previous $5.1m round.
Platform rollout
But over the Christmas period, Mubi also quietly rolled out support for Chromecast and launched a version of its service for Android smartphones, having previously been restricted to tablets in the Android realm.
Chromecast support (Android only for now) shouldn’t be underestimated, as it goes some way towards increasing the appeal of the $4.99/$34.99 (monthly/yearly) service, reducing the friction between wishing to watch a neat little indie movie and, well, actually watching the movie on your big-screen TV.
In your pocket and on your TV
Mubi is an oft-ignored company in the video-streaming realm, but it was one of the first VoD services to arrive on a games console when it partnered with Sony to launch on the PS3 in Europe way back in 2010.
Today, it’s also available on iOS, Android, Sony Bravia TVs, Amazon Fire TV, and the Web, while it finally arrived for PS4 last month.
Fandor is another company operating in a similar space to Mubi, except Fandor has a much wider selection of movies, plus it’s restricted to North American audiences. Mubi, on the other hand, is available in most markets and tailors its content and licensing deals for each country.
With Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and others slogging it out for your hard-earned video-streaming dollars, Mubi’s focus on human expertise over algorithms, while adopting a “one in, one out” approach that restricts the service to 30 movies at a time, should see it gain more fans moving forward.
Founded as The Auteurs back in 2007, the company changed its name to Mubi in 2010 and today has 50 employees working in London, San Francisco, and a handful of other locations around the world.