Coub is Russia’s version of the GIF, and it just raised $2.5 million

Short film clips that play on an endless loop are one of the internet’s favorite forms of amusement. In the United States, GIFs, and more recently Vines, have done an admirable job satisfying this craving. But in Russia, another service has created a unique approach to crafting viral video. Coub is a Russian startup founded in 2012 that lets users easily trim, loop, and embed video clips. Its best trick is making it simple to create a visual loop that plays along with an extended audio track, allowing users to easily generate trippy, playful, micro-music videos. Coub says it has reached fairly massive scale, with more than 50 million unique visitors to its website each month, up from 8 million this time last year. It is on iOS and has an Android app in the works, but most of its usage still comes from the desktop, because Coub’s best use case is not really creating new videos on the go, but making it easy to remix existing content. The company opened its first international office, in New York City, earlier this month, and today it’s announcing a new $2.5 million round of funding as it looks to put some distance between itself and the troubled business environment in its home country.