Venture Capital Firms

B-Side Offers Websites to Film Festivals Throughout North America

Founded in 2004, B-Side is a unique entertainment technology company that creates websites for over 250 independent film festivals throughout North America. As you first open the B-Side website, you are greeted with a headline that reads “The audience is never wrong.” The way that B-Side works is by connecting with different independent film producers who want publicity for their films and allows them to feature their film on a website on B-Side’s domain and then either individual viewers or entertainment companies and radio or TV stations can go onto those sites and view and critique the films.

When you first go onto B-Side’s website, you have several options to choose from. The homepage tells you who the people at B-Side are and what they do. There is also information about the films featured on B-Side and a schedule for upcoming film festivals. At the very top of each page, just beneath the headline, there are several links that you can click on. The first link after the home link is the films link.

The films link will bring you to all the films that are featured on B-Side. You can scroll down the list of the different films that are available for screening and next to the film’s thumbnail is a short story about what the film is about. You can either click on the thumbnail or on the more link after the brief paragraph of the film and you can view the film yourself using the Adobe Flash Player. You can even click on the full screen button to view the film on the entire screen of your computer’s monitor to have as much of the cinema effect as possible. Next to the film featured on the site, you can even schedule a screening of the film if you choose to do so.

The link after the films link is the festivals link. This link shows you when festivals are coming up and you can schedule to go to those film festivals if you choose to do so. Under this link, you can even view a video about the various film festivals available on B-Side.

The link after the festivals link is the blog link. Under this link, you can read several different blogs about upcoming film festivals and stories or critiques about the various films that are featured on B-Side.

B-Side is a privately owned corporation that is based in Austin, Texas and employed nine people. The company is managed by its founder, who is Chris Hyams; who also serves as B-Side’s CEO.

B-Side’s investors include Silverton Partners and Maples Investments, who invested $3.1 million in series A funding in October of 2006 and $4.25 million in series B funding in November of 2008 with Valhalla Partners joining the above mentioned investors.

Silverton Partners is a vc firm that primarily invests in early stage companies who are based in the Austin, Texas area. According to the team at Silverton Partners, the culture that is represented at the vc firm is a people driven culture that leads the partners at Silverton to partner up with exceptional entrepreneurs. Other companies in Silverton’s portfolio include Chicory Systems, Crimson, Crossroads Systems, Matrix Services, and others.

Maples Investments is an investment firm that was founded by investor and entrepreneur, Mike Maples, Jr. and the firm invests in all sectors of the tech industry. Other companies in Maples Investments include 750 Industries, Aggregate Knowledge, Bazaarvoice, Business Connect China, Ghegg, and others.

Valhalla Partners is a vc firm that has over $240 billion of capital under its management and mainly invests in companies who are in the software, internet, digital media, mobile, storage, and infrastructure industries. Other companies in Valhalla’s portfolio include Advertising.com, B2e Markets, BlueStripe Software, and others.

For more information about B-Side, click here.

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