This round was led by the US-based venture capital firm Morpheus Ventures, with additional investments from Airstream Ventures and Cooley.

In its mission to give consumers access to any digital content while ensuring fair and immediate value exchange for everyone involved, Recast’s innovative technology enables media owners to maximise distribution, monetisation, and 1st party data capture thereby offsetting rising subscription fatigue and churn. The investment will support further development of Recast’s API-centric smart payment platform and enhance its micro-payment wallet, facilitating the sale of digital commodities anywhere on the internet, beyond its current offering that supports monetising video and live streams.

Morpheus Ventures, known for backing transformative technology companies, recognised Recast’s potential to revolutionise the media fintech landscape.

Joseph Miller, managing partner of Morpheus Ventures, said: “Much like Shopify revolutionised e-commerce with its versatile platform, Recast is set to transform digital content monetisation and distribution.

“This transformation is supported by Recast’s advanced smart payment platform and micro-payment wallet, which offer a level of flexibility and immediacy akin to PayPal. With our extensive knowledge and experience in the media sector, we are confident that Recast has developed the right product at the right time.”

Airstream Ventures, founded by Gavin Petken, former head of investments at Business Growth Fund, and Ed Woodward, former executive vice-chairman of Manchester United, has also bolstered its initial investment.

Mr Petken said: “Recast’s proven data capture and monetisation capabilities made our decision easy. With over 40% of the world’s population under 24 years of age, expanding leisure time, and a shift to direct-to-consumer models, particularly in sports, Recast’s model excels.

“With conversion rates of over 15% from destination landing to cash, Recast’s solution enables rights owners to quickly and seamlessly unlock latent value from customers.

“Recast will no doubt establish itself as a core enabling technology and is therefore a perfect fit for the Airstream Ventures portfolio.”

Having initially been founded as a destination streaming platform with cutting-edge payment technology, Recast’s solution now integrates into media owners’ own digital destinations. This funding will enable Recast to further develop its smart payment platform and micropayment wallet via an open API, extending capabilities beyond video to any digital assets, enabling configurable rewards, and the integration of multiple digital currencies.

Recast’s Proprietary Technology Includes:

• Smart Payment Platform: Manages pricing and media distribution effortlessly. Earnings are content asset-specific and received instantly by media owners and related parties directly from the consumer.
• Smart Syndication Engine: This powerful engine integrates Recast’s solution onto media owners’ platforms, significantly amplifying reach and revenues. By engaging athletes, influencers, and affiliates, the syndication engine ensures they instantly earn a fee from every sale generated via media they host or share, creating a robust, self-sustaining ecosystem of content distribution and monetisation.
• Innovative Digital Wallet: Establishes a value exchange between advertisers, content owners, and consumers, incentivising actions like survey participation or sharing content or data with brands and media owners. The wallet facilitates micropayments or single transactions directly and immediately to the content owner.

Andy Meikle, CEO of Recast, said: “Our fundamental belief has always been to ensure universal access to content while ensuring fair and immediate value exchange for everyone involved.

“However, our approach has evolved. What began as a streaming service has now transformed into a dynamic fintech platform for the entire media industry.

“At the heart of what we do is making it as simple as possible for media owners to quickly generate revenue and capture meaningful data without the acquisition costs, while consumers enjoy seamless and affordable access to content.

“With Cooleys’ legal prowess, Airstream Ventures’ deep connections in sports, media, and entertainment and Morpheus Ventures’ impressive track record, experience, and extensive network, particularly in the US, I know we have the right strategic ingredients to realise our vision.”

The Recast board will be composed of Mr Meikle, Mr Miller, and Mr Petken, along with several independent industry and sector experts, including Scott Guglielmino (COO X-Games) and Drew Larner (founding CEO of Rdio).