Molotov: “It’s like TV, but we reinvented it”

With the astounding growth of technology, we are used to do all kinds of stuff with the tip of our finger – just click or tap. In this smart technology driven world, if you have you have to sit in front of the TV at a specific time to watch something- so out-fashioned and cumbersome. Basically, anything that is not instant is outdated.

Molotov, a French startup, is basically addressing this TV thing. This seamless, flexible and universal TV service will let you watch content at your own pace on all your devices — as long as you live in France.For many, Molotov represents the future of TV.

Molotov co-founder and CEO Jean-David Blanc puts it well, “Molotov isn’t television, and it isn’t Netflix. It’s like TV, but we reinvented it.”Molotov is what Apple has been trying to build in the U.S. for months, or even years. But so far, Apple has yet to sign deals with all the major U.S. networks. It looks like the networks are still reluctant and want to build standalone services, leading to a giant fragmentation of TV content.

Molotov has already raised $11.2 million from Idinvest and a few business angels (€10 million). In a smart move, the company is positioning itself as a distributor and not content owner. It has partnered with the major French networks which include everyone from TF1 to France Télévisions, M6, and Canal+ along with other countless smaller channels to put them on service. And instead of staking claims for ownership of content, the company is working with networks, respecting their channels and promising them a larger audience.

Unlike, devices that let you pause TV, record things and more but often gives a clunky experience and limited to TV, Molotov is a well-designed, fluid service that bends to your needs.

In France, free TV channels can air movies a year before they appear on Netflix or CanalPlay — premium networks can even air movies two years before Netflix. Molotov relies on these free and premium TV channels to provide another way to explore TV content.

Molotov mixes live content with previously aired TV shows and upcoming movies in a brand-new way unlike TV where you have to keep hopping from one channel to another. It beats other services because there’s simply more to watch with many different ways to access your content. The service provides features like forward and backward all content including live TV, switch the language to English for movies and TV shows and skip the ads.

Molotov gives same experience on the computer, iPad, and TV where you can continue watching without any break. With bookmark section, you can find all the movies, TV shows and documentaries saved for later. In the search feature, you can find anything from Star Wars movie to Tim Cook's documentaries.

“Netflix is like a lake. There are movies and TV shows and you pick them up from this lake,” Blanc says. “Molotov is more like a river — you can see upcoming shows arriving 15 days in advance, then you see them pass right in front of you like schooling fishes. And you can see them go away for another week.”

When the company put up a landing page last summer, they received tens of thousands of sign-ups when they were expecting only a few hundred sign-ups for the beta test. Seems like the startup has already positioned itself well to take over the French market when it launches on July 11.