THERE’S STILL no way to replicate the taste of a steak over the internet, but that hasn’t deterred the people behind Lookandtaste.com, whose new venture involves licensing video recipes to other websites.
The company, which operates several sites under the iFoods name, set up VidVend.com to license the video recipes and chef tips it produces.
VidVend has more than 150 videos with another 50 due to be added before the end of the week.
The Lookandtaste.com site already has more than 500 clips, including cookery shows.
The VidVend clips are available in either standard or high-definition formats and on a non-exclusive or exclusive basis. Prices start at €49 for a short cooking tip, moving up to €999 for exclusive rights to a video recipe.
iFoods has already finalised a deal with a well-known home appliance manufacturer to supply new and existing video content for a new kitchen product to be launched in October.
“The success of that product will do good things for us,” said Sean Fee, who co-founded iFoods with his business partner, chef Niall Harbison. “This is not a one-time deal, it’s got potentially very large recurring revenue aspects to it.”
Video licensing to websites is still a new area and until now the process was complicated and expensive, Mr Fee said.
He added that the market for stock video licensing on websites could replicate the success of the stock imagery market, which saw Getty Images pay €135 million to acquire the Irish website Stockbyte in 2006.
Initially, VidVend.com’s customers are likely to be media agencies, food brands looking to create microsites or even other video content producers.
The company deliberately didn’t choose a food-related name for VidVend because it plans to move into licensing general video content if the business model works, Mr Fee confirmed.
“If it goes well, we would like to branch out into becoming a stock video provider. We could potentially be a portal for video content producers,” he said.
iFoods was set up in 2007 and now employs five people in Dublin.
It has raised more than €500,000 in funding to date.
The first round, completed at startup, came from friends and family. A second tranche of investment was raised last December from angel investors, a software company and Enterprise Ireland.
Last year, the company appeared on the BBC programme Dragons’ Den but, despite being well received, failed to attract investment from the panel.
The company also recently launched grabmytable.com, a portal to let Irish restaurants with no website of their own to be listed with menus, special offers and contact information.
