Silicon Alley Insider | April 16, 2008
We know music videos are popular on the Web. The question is whether the kids that drive them to the top of the rankings care enough about quality to leave YouTube. Investors in startup PluggedIn Media thinks they do. The startup, backed with $2 million in venture funding from Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment and others, will stream “near DVD-quality videos” on the Web, and has deals with three of four majors: Universal Music Group, EMI and SonyBMG. (The site has no overall licensing deal with Warner Music Group (WMG), but some individual deals for videos.)
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CNet News | April 16, 2008
Actor Will Smith–or rather, his entertainment company, Overbrook Entertainment–is one of the investors behind a $2 million funding round for PluggedIn Media, a new site for watching high-definition and broadcast-quality music videos online, PaidContent.org reported Tuesday evening.
PluggedIn (wonder how much they paid for that domain?) reportedly has about 10,000 music videos in its catalog, thanks to contracts with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, and Universal Music Group. The videos are accompanied by artist profiles and some community features.
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Washington Post | April 16, 2008
A new music video destination is launching tonight, and yes, another one. PluggedIn, a new site based in Santa Monica, is launching with about $2 million in venture funding from Will Smith’s entertainment company, Overbrook Entertainment and others, CEO Jeff Somers told me today. The company says it has deals with Universal Music Group, EMI and SonyBMG, and will launch with about 10,000 HD and broadcast quality videos. The video is being delivered by Move Networks, which is the high-def video tech company that just announced its own$46 million round. PluggedIn has hopes of being the destination site of music videos (licensed and third party from around the Web), with artist profiles and community built around it.
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Contentinople | April 15, 2008
Video streaming company Move Networks Inc. has raised $46 million in Series C funding. Last month, the Series C round had been rumored to be in the $34 million range, a number that CEO John Edwards dismissed as low at the time.
The company now confirms the figure is $46 million with Benchmark Capital , Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Media (CIM Labs) , Televisa , Steamboat Ventures , and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners contributing.
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Venture Beat | April 14, 2008
Update: The company was valued at $150 million before the investment, according to the company’s chief executive.
Move Networks is one of several companies that offers a suite of services to help large media companies offer high-definition video over the web.
Its technology encodes high-quality video, and cuts down on buffering delays as a user watches a video, along with related services. Broadcasters use this content delivery service to stream long-form programs like Grey’s Anatomy over the Internet and mobile devices.
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ZDNet | April 14, 2008
Move Networks is announcing that they’ve raised a $46 million C round today from a variety of interesting companies including Cisco and Comcast Interactive Media. Move has gained a lot of ground as a high definition delivery mechanism for ABC.com and others. One of the things that makes Move interesting is the ability to change the bitrate of the streamed content based on how much bandwidth is available to the person watching the stream. They partnered with Microsoft around that feature so that Silverlight could take advantage of it.
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Mashable | April 14, 2008
More funding for an online HD video service. Move Networks has raised another $46 million in Series C funding, led by Benchmark Capital. Others in this round include Cisco, Comcast and Televisa, along with existing investors Steamboat Ventures and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
Move Networks already distributes content for most of the major networks through its proprietary media player, extending the option of HD quality video to be delivered to more online viewers. Earlier this year, Move Networks also teamed up with Microsoft’s Silverlight in order to deploy content via the Silverlight plug-in, giving Move Networks even wider range across browsers for distributing HD content.
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Streaming Media | April 14, 2008
Move Networks announced today that it has raised $46 million in a Series C round led by Benchmark Capital which includes Cisco and Comcast and Televisa, as well as previous investors Steamboat Ventures and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
While many sites, including TechCrunch, are reporting that Move Networks has raised $91.3 million to date, some bloggers are doing the wrong math. Move raised $10 million in 06′, $11.3 million in 07′ and $46 million in 08′. While many announced that Move had raised $34 million back in Q4 of 2007, this was part of the Series C that was publicly announced today.
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