Quibi has already raised US$1 billion, wants to double that by launch

Quibi, the short-form video platform helmed by industry veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg and former HP CEO Meg Whitman, is looking to raise US$1 billion (€890 million) – on top of the US$1 billion it has already raised.

According to The Information, the company’s founders believe that Quibi (which stands for ‘quick bite’) requires the additional funding in order to be competitive with the likes of Netflix and Disney.

While it is not due to launch for another year, we know that Quibi is designed to be a mobile-forward platform that is focusing on videos under 10 minutes in length. In terms of creators, the company has signed up The Shape of Water director Guilermo del Toro and original Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi to produce original content.

While the funding and personnel might be there, Quibi faces something of an uphill struggle based on other companies’ efforts to break into the short-form streaming space.

Verizon famously sunk USD$1.2 billion (€1.07 billion) into its Go90 video streaming platform before shutting it down in 2018, and Snap has struggled in its efforts to compete with the Discover feature of its social media app.