MovieLaLa recently received a considerable investment from Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, bringing the startup to $750,000 in funding. News of the investment was covered by Josh Constine in a TechCrunch article titled Marc Benioff Funds Social Network For Film Lovers “MovieLaLa”.
Sahin Boydas, Founder of MovieLaLa, is a graduate of the Bay Area Founder Institute.
In essence, MovieLaLa is a social network for film fans that offers users exclusive content and opportunities to connect with stars in a community of fellow enthusiasts eager for new info on the latest flicks. Leading the MovieLaLa team is CEO Dana Loberg, who has considerable experience working on large-scale marketing campaigns and at a film studio in Los Angeles.
Movie studios are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to market movies without the analytics and data to know where to target that marketing and to know it’s working." -Marc Benioff
Fortunately, MovieLaLa promises to solve this problem by also functioning as a data-driven marketing platform for Hollywood, providing film studios with data on who users are and what they like. This will hopefully result in better targeting for marketing campaigns, bolstering the opening weekend hype that is so important for a film's success. When a studio releases a successful film that acquires a following on MovieLaLa, they will now have an effective means to communicate with that same fan base when it is time to promote the sequel.
Other investors for MovieLaLa include Machininma co-founder and CEO Allen DeBevoise, past HBO president of digital initiatives and Warner Bros Online co-founder Jim Moloshok, founding Flixster investor Larry Braitman, and others from the entertainment industry.
To stay up to date on MovieLaLa, check out their official website.
