SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Telly today announced that it has acquired Sha-Sha Entertainment in a bid to bring Hollywood and Arabic movies and TV shows to 22 countries in the Arab world.  The company also announced that it has completed an $8 million Series B funding round with Cinemagic and Lumia Capital joining early investors Azure Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Felicis Ventures, and Georges Harik.

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"We're building a socially-connected on-demand film and video content service that will quickly rival the small regional services currently in market as well as those from the likes of Amazon, Hulu and Netflix who many expect to eventually launch in the Middle East," said Mo Al Adham, Founder and CEO of Telly. "In partnership with Mohammad El Saadi and the Sha-Sha team, we're engaging major Hollywood studios who are eager for a superior technology solution to distribute leading content to underserved markets at launch."

Telly enables social discovery of Hollywood movies and other video content from mobile devices or PCs. The social-media-savvy Arab world is poised to take advantage of Telly's unique recommendation technology. Telly has raised $21 million to date and the proceeds from the round will be used to open an office in Dubai, expand product offerings and hire additional staff.

"With more than 100 million monthly video views - a 10x increase since January - this is an exciting time for Telly," said Cameron Lester of Azure Capital Partners. "Telly can now deliver top titles and on-demand viewing experiences to the Arab world, a region that has no equivalent video-on-demand platform available today. This is just the first step and you should expect the service to be available in markets beyond the Arab World within a few years."   

About Telly
Telly is a leading social video network where you can discover and watch all of the video content your friends are enjoying across the web, as well as today's most popular titles. A rapidly growing community of over 11 million members are using Telly to discover and share great videos on our website and mobile apps. Today, Telly is also bringing premium movies and TV shows to its users in the Middle East and North Africa. Additional information can be found at www.telly.com.

Contact:  Michael Celiceo, Sparkpr for Telly, michael@sparkpr.com

SOURCE Telly