Ocho launches its Vine-like mobile video network, raises $1.65 from Mark Cuban and others

Update at 11:17 a.m. Pacific: Corrected to reflect that Showtime is not actually a content partner at the time, a deal representatives from both Showtime and Ocho later informed us has not been finalized.

With smartphones getting bigger and bigger and advertisers turning their attentions to the medium, it’s no surprise that new social networks are popping up that focus entirely on video.

Ocho, a new social network launching today on iOS, is announcing that it has raised $1.65 million in funding from Mark Cuban among other investors. The network also has partnerships with Vice Sports.

Ocho is a bit like Vine and Instagram, enabling users to shoot short videos (up to eight seconds), upload existing video, and edit it using the app’s built-in tools. Users can republish others’ videos or reply to them in video form.

Users can add hyperlinks to their videos as well as share them via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. They will also be able to weave in exclusive field dispatches from Vice Sports. Back in May, automatic video-making app Magisto struck a similar partnership with Discovery Communications (Discovery Channel, Science, Animal Planet, and others) to let its users work with some of its content in their video and photo reels.

Along with Mark Cuban, Ocho raised its funding from Bill Lohse’s Social Starts, Matt Brimer, Jiawei Wang, and others. Jourdan Urbach and Jonathan Swerdlin founded Ocho in New York City in 2012.