WeShort Closes €1 Million Financing Round

WeShort, the on-demand short film platform, which won the Giffoni Edition 2021 Special Award, has closed a €1 million financing round. The lead investor in the deal is Minerva Pictures, a historic Italian film production, and distribution company led by Santo Versace and Gianluca Curti, which subscribed with a 30 percent stake.

A group of business angels made up of leading figures from the world of startups, cinema, marketing, fashion, and technology also contributed to the closing of the round.

“The fact that Minerva Pictures chose to invest in WeShort marks a historic and unprecedented step in this market segment and in the history of short films globally. Honestly, it was what I aspired to from the very beginning, in late 2020, when in my home in Bisceglie, Puglia, I was conceiving WeShort and laying the groundwork for the startup. It was an almost dreamlike journey, in such a “short” time we experienced a cinema of emotions and beautiful memories: winning the special award at the first SIOS Giffoni Edition was one of the most beautiful moments, a harbinger of interest from the big guys towards the startup,”Alessandro Loprieno, founder and CEO, told StartupItalia.

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October, a month to remember for WeShort

“Beyond the financial and industrial support, on a personal level I am very grateful to be flanked on this growth path by two authoritative figures from the world of entrepreneurship and the film industry such as Ad Gianluca Curti and President Santo Versace, also a man from the South, of great vision and experience, from whom I am inspired to be able to achieve important results. For WeShort, October 2022 will always be a month to remember also for another reason, there was the premiere of the WeShort Originals,” added Loprieno.

“It is “Caramelle” a 3D animated short film, produced by Panebarco and Mediterraneo Cinematografica, which had its world premiere on October 15 at the Auditorium Conciliazione at Alice nella Città as part of the Rome Film Festival, where it won the “Audience Award – Best Short Film.” Enthusiastically concluded Loprieno to StartupItalia.

The evolution of WeShort

WeShort is a streaming platform, dedicated to the world of short cinema, available worldwide and on all iOS and Android web and mobile devices. Founded in late 2020 by 32-year-old Alessandro Loprieno from Puglia, the platform was created with the aim of enhancing the thousands of short films and series from all over the world, and giving a third entertainment option to the general public: from the works of yet-to-be-discovered talented directors to Oscar, BAFTA, Sundance, and Cannes awards. A WeShort section is already present in TCL’s channel offerings on more than 44 million smart TVs worldwide, and on the catalog of the CHILI platform, a European digital entertainment reality.

Currently, the platform has a library of more than 1,000 short films from 40 countries, in 15 different languages and subtitled in the five most spoken languages, in addition to Italian. The service is available on TVs, smartphones, and PCs for a subscription of 2.99 euros per month, with the possibility of a free trial. Available content includes short films for children.

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(Featured image by mohamed_hassan via Pixabay)

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