Whistle Sports, a service that curates and distributes sports-related content targeted to younger viewers, has raised a series D round that was led by Aser.

Liberty Media, Emil Capital, and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo are among others that participated in the round, which takes Whistle Sports’s total funding close to $100 million.

Whistle Sports, which notched a $20 million C round in March 2016, said the fresh funds will be used to expand original content development with partners such as Dude Perfect and The F2, and help to speed its move into markets such as Asia and Europe.

As part of a wider collaboration, Aser will also tie in help from its subsidiaries, including Eleven Sports, and help with Whistle Sports’s international expansion. Eleven Sports is currently in ten markets following recent moves to the U.K., Ireland and Portugal.

Whistle Sports launched in 2014 and claims to have an aggregate social audience of over 450 million subscribers, followers and fans that, last month, viewed 1.7 billion videos across the 2,000 channels in the Whistle Sports network.

Privately held Whistle Sports said it has a library of more than 560,000 videos and revenues that have seen a 52% year-on-year growth rate.

Other investors include NBC Sports, Sky Sports, Tegna and U.K.-based venture-capital firm Beringea.

Eyellusion, a startup focused on hologram concerts featuring digital recreations of certain deceased music artists, has raised a $2 million seed round from Thomas Dolan.

Thomas Dolan, currently on the boards of Madison Square Garden and AMC Networks, will also serve in an ongoing advisory role for Eyellusion.

Eyellusion will use the funds to help it move forward with planned world tours that feature holograms of two deceased artists – Frank Zappa and Ronnie James Dio – and other projects that include “A-list acts” to be announced later.

The funding also comes about five months after Eyellusion wrapped up the first leg of its “DIO Returns” tour, which played ten dates in seven countries over 18 days. Eyellusion expects to return for a world tour starting in early 2019.

Eyellusion noted that it’s in production on the “Bizarre World of Frank Zappa” tour that is partly based on never-before-seen performance footage of the musician from the early 1970s alongside former Zappa players performing live on-stage.

Eyellusion said its holograms and live productions are supported by a team of live music and special effects veterans, including Ahmet Zappa, its EVP of business development, Wendy Dio and veteran rock manager Todd Singerman ,who leads industry relations, and Kenny Aronoff, a world-renowned drummer, who supports technical live production efforts.

“The Eyellusion team is incredibly talented, bringing a combination of unique skillsets and experience across music, touring and digital effects,” Dolan, said in a statement. “I have been evaluating opportunities in this space for some time and believe Eyellusion has the best expertise and production chops for successful pursuit of this growing opportunity. I can’t wait for the team to share the new shows they’re creating with live music fans everywhere, making history along the way.”

Dreams, a startup focused on TV content for smartphones, said it has raised a $5 million Series A round led by Capital Ventures, and introduced a channel lineup that features content from partners such as Discovery, Bloomberg Media Distribution and BBC Studios.

The new, free Dreams app is available on iOS and Android devices and doesn’t require users to log-in or register.

New York-based Dreams was founded in 2016. It introduced its mobile TV concept, which focuses on the vertical-viewing format and a swipe-based interface, more than a year ago.

RELATED: Dreams Debuts TV Platform for Smartphones

The launch today marks a relaunch of sorts, as Dream has introduced smartphone-focused channels featuring shows and other content from Animal Planet (River Monsters, Too Cute! and Puppy Bowl); Bloomberg; Discovery Channel (Survivorman, Storm Chasers, and Dual Survival); Food Network (Good Eats, Iron Chef America, and Throwdown with Bobby Flay); Geo (long-form nature and animal documentaries licensed from BBC Studios), HGTV (My First Place, Extreme Homes and Tiny House Hunters); Newsflash (live news feeds); Slow (“minimalist,” soothing shots of landscapes, streams and rainfall); VHS (full episodes from TV shows from the ‘80s and ‘90s, including The Joy of Painting, Inspector Gadget, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, and Sonic the Hedgehog).

Also on the initial slate is Wedding Week, a “pop-up” channel that will feature a live stream of the Royal Wedding on May 19 as well as a long-form documentary on the subject).

What Dreams has tried to steer clear of is the notion of pasting a traditional skinny TV into a smartphone format.

“The idea of instant on, mobile TV to your phone with swipeable channels in a simple app has always been our goal,” Tom Bender, CEO and co-founder of Dreams, said in a recent interview.

Bender, formerly of Google and a team focused on new ad formats at DoubleClick, added that Dreams has been investing R&D dollars in the past year to build up technology that delivers content that is optimized for the smartphone’s vertical screen.

Dreams will be pursing an ad-based business model. Shows for its platform have been edited for the vertical screen, as will the ads that will be dynamically served into those linear-style feeds.

Typically, Dreams will program one full episode per day on each library channel.

“It’s clear from the advertisers what they are advertising against,” Bender said.

“We see this as a complement to paid services like Netflix,” added Dreams co-founder Greg Hochmuth, who is late of Instagram and Google.

Dreams’s A round also included participation by NEA, SV Angel, Box Group, Scott Belsky, and Kevin Durant.

More detail about Dreams and its strategy will be featured in the May 21 issue of Broadcasting & Cable. 

Cheddar, the business and tech news service focused on affluent millennials, has landed a $22 million Series D round led by Raine Ventures.

Cheddar, which has raised about $32 million so far, said the funds will be used in part to fuel domestic and international expansion.

Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Comcast Ventures, AT&T, Altice USA, The New York Stock Exchange, Ribbit Capital, and Amazon participated in the latest round, as did new ones such as Liberty Global, Goldman Sachs, Antenna Group, 7 Global Capital, and Dentsu Ventures.

In line with its new funding, Cheddar talked up a growing distribution strategy that expanded on its OTT roots to also include work with MVPDs and other partners that include Sling TV, Layer3 TV (now part of T-Mobile), Comcast (for its X1 platform), Amazon, Facebook, Spotify, Twitter, and Twitch, among others.

It also has plans to launch its Snapchat Publisher Story offering in April, as well as Cheddar Big News, a service that’s billed as a “general news network” covering politics, business, sports, weather and trending stories “without crowding the set with pundits and panels.”

RELATED: More Channels Tune in to Twitch

Cheddar is valued at $160 million, up from $85 million following its previous funding round, and has booked $18 million in revenue for 2018, Cheddar founder and CEO Jon Steinberg told The Wall Street Journal.

"I'm thrilled to welcome this group of leading global media powerhouses into Cheddar," Jon Steinberg, founder and CEO of Cheddar,” Steinberg said in a statement. "We are strengthening our already robust balance sheet with capital that we can use to bring our Post Cable Networks to Europe and beyond. We own all of our IP and now is the time to monetize this asset globally."

"Our investment in Cheddar is the first step in what will be our international collaboration with the company," Simon Freer, chief commercial officer of Liberty Global's content investments arm, said in a statement. “Cheddar is the leader in live digital news video, and owns all its IP. We believe Cheddar can go global, and we are excited to collaborate with the company to make that a reality."

Tunity, a startup that has built an app that lets users hear live audio streams from muted televisions, has secured a $12 million Series A round alongside a partnership with MGM Resorts.

A-round participants included existing investors, such as John Mack, former Morgan Stanley CEO, and Adam Neumann, Founder and CEO of WeWork, as well as MGM Resorts International.

Tunity said its platform -- helpful to consumers who are watching TVs outside the home in venues such as sports bars, airports, waiting rooms, hospitals and gyms, and for networks that eager to get a better fix on on-the-go viewing -- currently works with more than 100 channels in the U.S., including Fox, CBS and ESPN.

Tunity claimed that its app, available on Google Play and Apple’s app store, has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times.

Under the strategic partnership, MGM Resorts will use Tunity’s patented technology to “enhance their guest’s experience” by enabling them to hear any TV on its properties using the Tunity mobile app.

Tunity said its mobile app enables users to scan nearby TVs and uses the company’s cloud-based deep learning and Computer Vision technology to identify the live video stream and sync up the video’s timing with the audio, which is streamed to the user’s smartphone.

“With more than 20% of Americans watching television outside of the home, today’s announcement brings us one step closer to transforming the way consumers interact with live programming they want to watch but can’t hear,” Yaniv Davidson, Tunity’s founder, said in a statement. “Measuring these out-of-home audiences has tremendous value to brands and the networks. Extracting Tunity’s unique data insights will provide better understanding of viewing habits, and lead to more effective ad buying decisions.”

Comcast Ventures participated in a $14 million “A” round of funding in BigID, a startup focused on enterprise data protection and privacy for personal data.

Other new investors in the round included ClearSky Security and SAP.iO. Previous investor BOLDstart Ventures also participated in the round, with takes BigID’s funding total to about $16.1 million.

BigID said it will use the funds to shore up its engineering team in Israel and expand its global sales and marketing efforts for its “data-driven personal information (PI) protection, privacy and governance platform.”

The company said its platform combines machine learning with identity intelligence to find, track and “de-risk” identity data at petabyte scale.

Founded in 2016, BigID is headquartered in New York, and launched its initial product in mid-2017.  

Tied to the A round, announced in conjunction with CyberTech Israel, BigID said ClearSky Security Managing Director and former Blackstone CISO Jay Leek has joined its board of directors.

“Customers are the lifeblood of any business and unless an organization can properly safeguard the security and privacy of their customer data they will not survive in the digital economy,” Dimitri Sirota, CEO at BigID, said in statement. “Regulations like GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] crystallize the need for companies to understand their data. BigID gives companies a first-of-its-kind way to find, secure and govern their identity data across the data center and cloud. After all, you can’t know your customer unless you first know their data.”

Unreel.me, a startup that has developed an OTT streaming platform for networks and publishers, said it has raised $1.5 million in pre-Series A financing, led by Michael Kelly, the CEO of Denver-based IoT Broadband, LLC and a former exec at Dish Network and Blockbuster.

Kelly is joined by media-focused angel investors that include Digital Ignition, Vineyard Point Associates, and Poise Ventures, among others.

Unreel.me also appointed Kelly to its board of directors along with John Pavia, EVP of business and corporate development at LogicSource, a Bain Capital Ventures portfolio company based in Norwalk, Conn.

Unreel said it builds OTT apps and sites for video networks as an alternative to traditional video distribution methods such as satellite and cable, and claims it can extend its partners’ reach to platforms such as web browsers, iOS, tvOS, Roku, Android, XUMO, Vewd, and various smart TV platforms “in a matter of weeks.”

Unreel noted that it also secured four U.S. patents focused on Artificial Intelligence known internally as Bumblebee,  technology that “crawls the web for time-stamped comments surrounding videos in Unreel’s system.” The company said more than 50 million points of data around this type have been indexed by its A.I. technology.

“With this funding, we can continue to grow the company’s technology platform to universally onboard and distribute content, enabling a frictionless distribution of content,” Dan Goikhman, CEO of Unreel, said in a statement.

Launched in 2015 with offices in New York and Santa Monica, Unreel’s public partners include JustLOL, JASH, Popcornflix, RecoilTV, Taste It, and Throttle.

iflix, a multiscreen SVOD service for emerging markets, said it has wrapped up a $133 million round of funding led by Hearst along with new and existing investors that include Singapore’s EDBI, Evolution Media, Sky PLC, Catcha Group, Liberty Global, Jungle Ventures and PLDT.

The new round brings iflix’s total funding to more than $220 million. The new round will be used to invest in iflix’s local content strategy, the company said.

RELATED: iflix Taps CSG for Payment Options 

iflix, which competes with Netflix and Amazon Video in some markets around the globe, launched service in May 2015 and has grown from four markets to 19 across Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The company said its subscriber base has grown 3x and revenues have risen 230% over the past 12 months, and that mobile viewing is around 2.5 hours to 2.75 hours per session.

“We are thrilled to welcome Hearst President and CEO Steven Swartz and Hearst Entertainment & Syndication President Neeraj Khemlani to the iflix family,” iflix co-founder and group CEO Mark Britt, said in a statement. “Hearst is a leading investor and has many of the world’s most innovative and iconic video brands, including ESPN, A+E Networks, Vice, AwesomenessTV, Complex and more. This collaboration significantly deepens our bench of experts with our longstanding partners Evolution Media, Sky and Liberty Global to help drive iflix’s continuing growth.”

iflix was advised by Moelis & Company LLC, Delta Partners and Herbert Smith Freehills for its latest funding round. 

UpRamp, a subsidiary of CableLabs, and Boomtown Accelerator have struck a three-year partnership under which they will select and help an array of early stage startups that are focused on connected devices and software.

The program will originate from Boomtown’s headquarters in Boulder, Colo., and utilize a Connectivity Lab there that is being sponsored by Comcast Labs.

UpRamp and Boomtown plan to select six “cohorts,” or group of about ten to 12 startups, over the next three years that will go through a 12-week program/curriculum to help those companies reach the next level in their development.  

"We will invest in approximately 20 early stage startups over those three years,” Toby Krout,  Boomtown’s executive director, said. “Boomtown will be the operator of the accelerator. We're aiming for companies that are in the cable broadband connectivity space and we'll be making co-investments with UpRamp."

"The focus here is on hardware and connectivity startups," added Scott Brown, UpRamp’s executive director. "It's part of the reason why we're excited about this partnership with Boomtown -- their ability to find young and emerging startups, [people] with a dream and a couple of slides in this space, that can have a real material impact on the subscribers across our 57 members around the world and how we can pull those software-based and hardware-based startups into our ecosystem." 

The application process for the first group, open to startups in the U.S. and abroad, is now underway, and UpRamp and Boomtown expect to make their first picks this summer and conduct the first cohort this fall.

In exchange for the 12-week program and typically $20,000 in seed capital, UpRamp and Boomtown will share in up to a 6% equity stake in each startup that is selected. That sort of equity arrangement is similar to the approach UpRamp takes with its “Fiterator” program, in which the CableLabs subsidiary gets a small stake in selected startups and a guarantee that selected companies come out of it with valuable exposure and commercial deals with cable operators.

RELATED: UpRamp Gets Small Stake In Startup Selections

The partnership is focused on very young companies that are just getting their feet under them and a program that could serve as a stepping stone to UpRamp's Fiterator program. 

"We see the Boomtown relationship as kind of a feeder organization into the UpRamp Fiterator program, but it's not guaranteed" Brown said, holding that the Boomtown process is designed in part to help those startups prove out their central idea.

UpRamp announced its first Fiterator class last August, and recently said that its first four graduating teams now have 18 engagements with cable and broadband operators. UpRamp has started to accept applications for its fall 2017 program, which requires that companies have more than $1.5 million in financing or “sustainable revenue” and a working product or service that fits with the cable, broadband and wireless industry.

RELATED: CableLabs-Backed UpRamp Program Reveals Startup Picks

The Boomtown/UpRamp curriculum will focus on “founder preparedness" in that it will get the founder or co-founders to obsess about the customer and the core problem that their company is trying to solve. The program will also provide some exec-type training so founders can a fix on how to tackle adversity and handle conflict and help young entrepreneurs, if they’re successful, get ready to run large, high-growth startups.

In addition to coming out of the program with a viable product or service that will likely attract competition, they want to cultivate a fast-moving team that knows the problem better than others so they are positioned to win the long game, Krout explained.

The program will “focus a lot on the founders themselves and the character of the founders and the team dynamics,” Krout added. “The idea, obviously, is really important as well but we're different from some accelerators in that the most important thing to us is not that they are far, far along, with traction, revenue and profitability. We think that, because we invest so much in our program -- it's constantly evolving based on feedback from every class -- that we can go earlier stage and have a bigger impact, so it's important to us that the quality of the team is top notch." 

Boomtown has invested in more than 70 companies. Earlier this year, it launched The Farm Accelerator in Atlanta with Comcast NBCUniversal’s LIFT Labs for Entrepreneurs program.

WinView, a startup that has built a free mobile app that lets users win cash prizes by making situational predictions during live TV sporting events, said it has raised a $12 million “B” round from a group that includes Graham Holdings, Discovery Communications, LionTree Partners, and Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports & Entertainment.

WinView said the funding round was led by former TiVo and NBC exec Tom Rogers, who is also executive chairman of WinView. With the new round factored in, WinView has raised about $20 million.

WinView said it will use the funding to drive further development and marketing of its skill-based mobile app for a wide range of pro sports, including baseball, basketball and football.

WinView Games, an ad-supported, free app, covers sporting contests via in a live studio by a team of producers based on what is happening in real time. As an example, users can predict outcomes of a football game, including propositions such as the opening coin toss, outcomes of field goals, and placing wagers (in the form of points) on whether a running back might fumble the ball during the current quarter.

“It’s an incredibly skill-oriented game,” Rogers told Multichannel News last year when WinView announced it had raised about $6.5 million, and a $3.4 million “A” round led by Rogers and former Cablevision Systems (now Altice USA) vice chairman Hank Ratner, who is now president and CEO of Independent Sports and Entertainment, a New York-based firm that represents more than 300 athletes across several major pro sports.

RELATED: Betting on the Future of Enhanced TV (subscription required)

WinView currently offers apps for iOS and Android. The company said it has a portfolio of 40 “foundational patents” covering the synchronization of the second-screen with TV broadcasts and commercials. 

The new investors “is a major validation of our live TV sports prediction platform and its upside potential to engage TV viewers in a new way to enjoy televised sports," Rogers said in a statement. "The WinView Games app fills a sports culture void by converting fans and TV viewers from spectators into play-along-live participants. Following last fall's successful start, these investments will enable us to take a significant step forward toward reaching our mobile, social and gaming business goals while capitalizing on fan excitement across virtually all professional sports including basketball, baseball and football. We also will strive to be part of the in-stadium experience, enabling fans to predict plays from their seats."

"WinView's products complement Discovery's goal to reach and engage our superfans around the world and across all screens,” added David Zaslav, Discovery’s president and CEO.

Verizon Ventures and R/GA are teaming on a program focused on helping growth and early-stage companies that are involved in “disruptive technologies” tied to digital entertainment and media consumption.

They said the focus of the Verizon Media Tech Venture Studio will be focused on, but not limited to, areas such as content creation and personalization, VR/AR, AI, image recognition, content distribution, interactive advertising, eSports, and other emerging digital media platforms.

Per the new program’s web site, Verizon Ventures and R/GA will jointly invest up to $100,000 in each selected company, and select up to ten companies for the program. “Deal terms will depend in part on the stage of each startup as well as the terms of funding raised previously by each startup,” the program Q&A reads.

Selected companies will also have access to Verizon’s tech platforms and senior product leaders at Verizon’s digital businesses, including those involved with Fios, Go90, AOL and Verizon Digital Media Services. They’ll also get a chance to work with R/GA’s strategic marketing, consulting, branding, design, and technology teams.

The program will be held at Verizon’s new co-working facility in New York City’s Flatiron district. Program participants will need to make and pay for their own living arrangements.

The Verizon Media Tech Venture Studio’s application process runs from March 10 through May 30. Selected companies will be notified on July 5. The program will start on July 31, and conclude in mid-November, culminating in an invite-only demo event, where each selected company will get a chance to present to investors, industry leaders, and the press. 

"Verizon is at the forefront of the digital media revolution and we continue to explore the next wave of media innovation,” John Doherty, SVP of corporate development at Verizon and head of Verizon Ventures, said in a statement. “The Verizon Media Tech Ventures Studio with R/GA will connect us with emerging startups that are shaping the future of this business. Verizon and R/GA have created an advanced program for startups with unparalleled access to resources, technology and intellectual capital that will accelerate their growth.”

The new program appears to have some similarities to UpRamp, an accelerator/incubator program for startups from CableLabs. Under that program, selected companies get valuable exposure with cable operators and some guaranteed commercial deals. UpRamp also asks for a small equity stake, in the form of warrants, in each private company that’s picked for the program. 

RELATED: UpRamp Gets Small Stake In Startup Selections

Starry, the wireless broadband startup led by former Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia, has raised a $30 million “B” round that brings its total funding to $63 million, the company confirmed. 

RELATED: Starry Eyes Wireless Broadband Alternative

The startup disclosed a $30 million raise in this SEC filing dated Dec. 16. In January, Starry announced backers that included FirstMark Capital, Tiger Global, IAC, KKR, HLVP and Quantum Strategic Partners, but did not say how much funding it had raised at the time.

Kanojia, who tried to disrupt the pay TV industry with Aereo, which went bankrupt and lost its case against several major broadcasters, is now turning his eyes toward broadband with a wireless broadband service that’s aiming to deliver speeds up to 1-Gig using millimeter wave technology. Starry's service will not be saddled with data caps.  

RELATED: Supremes Rule Against Aereo

Starry also confirmed that it is conducting a closed beta in Boston, with plans to expand that toward the end of Q1 2017. That expansion and deployment in Boston is expected to continue for the next several months in anticipation of deployments outside of Boston in a handful of cities by the end of 2017. 

RELATED: Kanojia Gave FCC's Wheeler Heads up About Starry

Ahead of a commercial debut, Starry is selling a WiFi router with a 3.8-inch touchscreen for $249.99, already reduced from an originally announced retail price of $349.99. Per the Starry site, the device is available directly through the company or via outlets such as Amazon, Best Buy and B&H.

Comcast Ventures has been helping to bankroll several virtual reality startups of late, but it has also earmarked some cash for new company focused on online pet care services.

PetCoach, maker of a digital pet healthcare platform based in Wayne, Pa., said it has secured $2 million in seed funding led by the Comcast VC arm.

PetCoach, led by former founder and CEO of Pet360 and the former chief digital officer of PetSmart Brock Weatherup, said it will use the funds to accelerate a business that helps pet owners (or “Pet Parents,” in the company’s parlance) receive direct advice from certified vets, trainers and other pet care experts.

PetCoach runs its service on a Web site as well as apps for iOS and Android devices. PetCoach is also backed by DreamIt Ventures and Maveron.

“Comcast Ventures provides great strategic insight, access to resources we couldn’t get on our own and deep support as we transform the way Pet Parents think about and engage in the care and wellbeing of their pets,” Weatherup said in a statement.

“We are thrilled to be assisting PetCoach in accelerating its growth and mission within the online pet healthcare industry,” added Sam Landman, managing director at Comcast Ventures. “The team at PetCoach is well-positioned to become the leader in omni-channel pet care.”

Wochit, a startup that curates, licenses and syndicates video news footage for a range of Web video platforms, said it has raised another $13 million in a round that included ProSieben, SPH Media Fund, Carlo de Benedetti and existing investors Redpoint, Marker LLC and Cedar Fund.

Wochit said it will use the funds to expand its business with publishers and content creators worldwide.

Wochit, who’s co-founders include BigBand Networks CTO Ran Oz (Arris acquired BigBand in 2011), raised a $4.75 million A round in 2013. Wochit, headquartered in New York with offices in Tel Aviv  and London, was founded in 2012.

Brands and media companies such as Time Inc., Daily News, USA Today, Gannett, AOL, The Week, ProSieben, Singapore Straits Times, Die Welt and Der Spiegel use Wochit’s platform to produce short-form videos around trending topics.

According to the Wochit, it published 15,348 videos last month and has more than 350 publishers on board.

"The proliferation of content platforms has resulted in an incredible demand for video. With Wochit, ProSiebenSat.1 is able to produce video content at the scale needed to address this growing need, even providing tools to help deliver that content in the right format for each distribution channel, Jens Doka, chief product officer at ProSiebenSat1 Digital, said in a statement. 

Pluto TV, the free, linear-style OTT-TV service that offers dozens of channels, said it will eye international expansion after closing a $30 million B round that was led by ProSiebenSat.1 along with help Scripps Networks Interactive and Sallfort PrivatBank and a batch of existing investors.

FT said the new funding values Pluto TV at about $140 million.

Pluto TV noted that its service supports more than 5 million monthly active  users (up from about 500,000 in Q1 2015).

Pluto TV also announced it has acquired a company called Quazer to accelerate its expansion into Europe. Quazer is a “lean back TV” startup focused on non-fiction content for German-speaking markets that was previously owned by ProSiebenSat.1.

The new investment adds to the $13 million A round Pluto TV raised in November 2014 that was led by U.S. Venture Partners, with participation from United Talent Agency and existing investors Sky, Chicago Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, and Luminari Capital. 

Pluto TV said ProSiebenSat.1 and Scripps Networks will accelerate its programming expertise in the U.S. and in Europe.

Pluto TV launched its curated OTT service in 2014. Today it delivers an array of channels in genres spanning news, sports, comedy, action and adventure, drama, arts and lifestyle, and geeks and gaming, and music. Examples of induvial channels include Drive-In Movies, Classic TV, After School Cartoons. Sky News, NBC News, Bloomberg Television, Snow TV, The Onion, Anime, Awesomeness TV, Mystery Science 3000, NASA TV, 4K channel, as well as two services now owned by Scripps – Newsy and Cracked.

RELATED: Scripps Snaps Up Cracked for $39M

Pluto TV also supports several OTT platforms, including Web browsers, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Apple TV, Chromecast, select smart TVs, and iOS and Android smartphones and tablets.

“With this funding and the expansion into Europe, Pluto TV is uniquely positioned to become the global OTT destination for free television. That’s the goal. That’s the future of TV,” Tom Ryan, Pluto TV’s CEO, said in a statement.

"In only 18 months we scaled our viewership tenfold to an audience of more than 5 million monthly active viewers. That rapid growth affirms our belief that people love the simplicity of a lean back television service curated to their interests, added Ken Parks, the former Spotify exec who is now Pluto TV’s executive chairman.

RELATED: Ken Parks Leaves Spotify for Pluto TV

Though Pluto TV continues to be a free, ad-based service, Parks told FT that the company has not ruled out the development of a premium subscription OTT service. 

U.K.-based Sky said it has invested $2 million in Caavo, a TV-focused consumer electronics startup based in Santa Clara, Calif.

Caavo was founded in 2015 by Andrew Einaudi, Ashish Aggarwal, Vinod Gopinath and Blake Krikorian, the entrepreneur and co-founder of video place-shifting pioneer Sling Media who died August 3 at the age of 48.

Caavo has not announced product plans, but Sky said the startup’s vision is to “improve the in-home entertainment experience for consumers, by offering easy-to-use and beautifully designed products.” Caavo’s currently sparse Web site includes a contact email address with the message: “The missing link between your TV and you.”

RELATED: Sky Plows $45M Info Iflix

Sky’s backing of Caavo follows other investments it’s made in early-stage companies such as Pluto TV, Roku, Whistle Sports, and Jaunt, a VR-focused startup.

A+E Networks has led a £5 million (US $6.4 million) investment round in TVPlayer, the U.K.-based “freemium” OTT service.

TVPlayer uses its platform to provide access to the U.K.’s major over-the-air TV channels, plus a premium “Plus” tier of 30-plus channels for £4.99 (US $6.42) per month.

Tied to the investment, TVPlayer will offer A+E Networks’ Blaze channel, which launched in the U.K. on September 30. TVPlayer also distributes channels from Fox, Viacom, Discovery Networks, Eurosport, Sony, Turner, and Scripps Networks, among others.

TVPlayer doesn’t reveal how many viewers are on its premium option, but said the service, targeted at millennials and mobile users, currently has more than 1 million active users. It supports several platforms, including Web browsers, iOS and Android mobile devices, Samsung smart TVs, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV devices.

TVPlayer said it will use the investment, which included participation from existing investor Beringea, to expand its content slate and its distribution in the U.K. It is also preparing to launch a marketing campaign leading up to Christmas 2016.

Linked to the funding, TVPlayer has “de-merged” from its parent company, Simplestream, and now operates as a standalone company with dedicated management, marketing and technology teams. Founder Adam Smith, and co-Founders Lewis Arthur and Dan Finch continue to hold a “significant stake” TVPlayer and will work alongside a new management team, which will be announced “soon.”

“Now is the right time to get some serious investment into the business,” Finch, who is commercial director of Simplestream, said. He noted that the separation also allows TVPlayer to operate with a revised skillset for its consumer-focused business, and for Simplestream to continue on as a business-to-business operation.

He noted that TVPlayer is past the incubation stage and ready to “stand on its own two feet.”

The TVPlayer freemium approach “is the future of TV delivery, as far as we’re concerned,” viewing it as complementary to SVOD services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Finch said about 80% of consumers who trial the premium-level service become to paying customers. “Our job is to maintain that conversation rate,” he said. 

Cloud video infrastructure startup Bitmovin said it has landed a $10.3 million series A round led by Atomico.

Bitmovin said the funds will help it accelerate development of video playback technologies for existing and new platforms, including 360-degree video for virtual reality services and apps.

Also joining the A round are a group of Bitmovin angel backers -- David Helgason, founder of Unity; Chris Kaiser, former VP of Engineering at Netflix and YouTube, and Edward Kozel, a former CTO of Cisco Systems and Deutsche Telekom.

Bitmovin, which provides cloud-powered video encoding services and an HTML5 player for desktop, mobile, smart TV and VR platforms, counts OTT customers around the world such as Toolbox, Bouygues Telecom, Nomads, Flimmit, Technicolor, Genflix, Kronehit (online radio).  

Its tech partners include Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft, Irdeto, Wowza Media Systems and ad-tech specialist YuMe.

Its intro-level monthly pricing for cloud encoding ranges from free (capped at 2.5 gigabytes per month with “limited” support, to $29 per month for a “Startup” tier, $59 for its “Business” tier, and $149 for a “Professional” level offering.

Bitmovin also offers a range of “Enterprise” plans that start at $645 per month. The company also has monthly and enterprise plans for its adaptive player based on the number of video views.

Bitmovin, based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Klagenfurt, Austria, is also backed by Dawn Capital, SpeedInvest, and Constantia New Business. It was founded in 2013. 

NextVR, a startup that specializes in live-action virtual reality broadcast technologies and systems, has raised an $80 million Series B round that, it says, will help to fund a global expansion.

The funding will also help NextVR produce a larger assortment of live entertainment, including concerts and sporting events, it said.

All investors from NextVR’s $30.5 million “A” round joined the new round (Formation Group, Time Warner Investments, Comcast Ventures, Stephen Ross’s RSE Ventures, Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber, The Madison Square Garden Co., and dick clark productions).

A group of new investors, including several based in Asia, participated in NextVR’s B round, and supplied the majority of its funding:  CITIC Guoan Information Industry Co Ltd; NetEast, CMC Holdings; SoftBank Corp.; VMS Investments Group; the Founder H Fund; China Assets (Holdings) Limited; and Spectrum 28, an early-stage fund investor based in San Francisco.

“With this new funding, we will continue to build NextVR’s virtual reality platform to meet the needs of the world’s largest fan bases around live sports and music content,” Brad Allen, NextVR executive chairman, said in a statement. “Having the support of Asia’s biggest players provides us with significant resources for creating and distributing both local and international content in China, Korea, and Japan.”

NextVR also has a five-year partnership with Fox Sports to collaborate on VR coverage of  several sporting events, and recently cut a deal with Live Nation.

NextVR was launched in 2009. 

Zype, a cloud-powered OTT distribution service, said it has closed a $3.6 million round of seed funding led by Revel Partners.

Zype noted that $2 million has been added to an initial raise of $1.6 million announced last October. Other investors include Point Nine Capital, Alpine Meridian Ventures, Berlin Ventures, Entrepreneurs Investment Fund, and Terrapin Bale Ventures.

Zype, founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York, said revenues in 2015 rose 229% paired with a 327% surge in new customer acquisitions.

The startup said more than 100 OTT apps from customers are now present in the market, and claims to be managing more than 821,000 unique video titles for its partners. Zype’s announced customers feature mix of content creators and SVOD services, including NBTV Studios, Mill Creek  Entertainment, The Rebel Media, The Film Detective, The Grind House, Chukker.tv, Brooklyn On Demand, Shout! Factory, and the All Babies Channel.

Zype’s platform, which handles elements such as publishing, streaming alongside data analytics,  supports a wide range of platforms, including Apple TV, iOS and Android, the Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Web browsers, and smart TVs.

Zype also announced that AJ Vernet, late of DoubleClick, Sizmek, and Digital Broadcasting Group, has been hired as chief revenue officer.

CryWorks, a virtual reality content startup backed by vets of Pixar, Industrial Light & Magic, and Disney, said it has scored around of seed funding led by Michael Bay’s 451 Media Group, 500 Mobile Collective, and WI Harper Group.

CryWorks, based in Los Angeles and San Francisco and founded in 2015, didn’t announce the amount of the seed round, but noted that it has already worked on VR projects for Samsung, The Wall Street Journal, and eSports-focused ESL One.

The VR-focused startup is led by founder and CEO Euan Macdonald, who is late of Lucasfilm/ILM, Pixar, Disney and Electronic Arts, with credits that include Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter films.

Co-founder Hans Uhlig is CryWorks’s CTO, and is formerly with Lucasfilm/ILM, EA and Polygon. He will oversee the company’s tech development and proprietary capture and production systems and its VR applications.

Kymber Lim, another co-founder, is the company’s chief content officer, and is late of visual effects houses companies such as Psyop, Digital Domain and Method Studios. She will help with business development, Hollywood/Asia relations and VR production, the company said.

“Although there are a few high-quality VR content pieces to date, most of them have little incentive for the viewer to keep tuning back in,” Macdonald said, in a statement. “We see an opportunity to build the first VR broadcast network, partnering with other production companies and creating addictive, episodic experiences.” 

Tappp, a startup that enables partners to offer streaming services via subscription and pre-paid payment options, this week announced it has raised $4.2 million in a round led by Accomplice, along with participation from Transmedia and individual investors such as Mike Baker, Gina Garrubbo, and Keith Nilsson.

Tappp currently offers services in India and Southeast Asia, but plans to extend into North America, starting in Canada. Its current crop of content partners HooQ (Singtel Group, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros.), DittoTV, Box TV, and Gaana, among others.

Tappp said it offers online subscription services and pre-paid cards that can be purchased at more than 100,000 retailers. Though its early focus has been on international markets that rely heavily on cash and pre-paid purchase transactions, cable operators, such as Comcast, have been testing pre-paid TV and high-speed Internet service models to reach a segment of the market that does not qualify for post-paid services. 

Whistle Sports, a digital sports content aggregator focused on millennial audiences, said it has landed a $20 million “C” round of funding from TEGNA, NBC Sports Ventures, Sky and Emil Capital.

Whistle Sports, which announced a $28 million “B” round in January 2015 from a group that included  Sky and Liberty Global, has raised a total of about $60 million.

Launched in 2014, Whistle  Sports, which counts go90 among its digital distribution partners, said it reach recently reached an aggregate of 170 million across all its social channels, and that the service’s user base has been growing by more than 2 million each week.  

Whistle Sports’s core audience is age 14-30, though the service sees “a lot of movement on both sides of those numbers,” company exec Brian Selander told Multichannel News in an interview last fall (subscription required).

“Whistle Sports has activated and inspired a new generation of sports fans and followers. Our strength in distribution coupled with their innovative content, will create numerous opportunities for both companies to grow across platforms,” said Gracia Martore, president and CEO of TEGNA, in a statement. “This investment and strategic partnership will not only enable both of our companies to reach valuable new audiences, it will also combine our respective expertise to create more innovative content and advertising solutions.”

“Whistle Sports has successfully captured the imaginations, attention and engagement of millennial sports fans, and consistently delivers compelling content and options to brands and agencies eager to connect with that critical and growing demographic,” added Rick Cordella, SVP and GM, digital media, at NBC Sports Group. “Whistle Sports has proven to be a reliable source of original and creative content, and their data-driven approach to developing new audience insights sets them up for an even stronger future”

Canvs, a New York-based startup that uses Twitter data to help its partners interpret the emotions of the TV viewing audience, has raised a $5.6 million “A” round led by KEC Ventures.

Rubicon Venture Capital, Gary Vaynerchuck and BRaVe Ventures, Social Starts, and Milestone Venture Partners also participated in the round. Canvs said the fresh funds are tagged to fuel product development and growth.

While ratings tell part of the story (how many viewers are tuning in), Canvs aims to go deeper by mining and analyzing social TV data to help its partners understand how a TV show is resonating with viewers. How do those shows make them feel from moment to moment? What’s the emotional temperature of the audience? Are they excited? Mad? Sad? Amused? Zoning out? Do they love or hate a newly introduced character?

Canvs, explains company cofounder and CEO Jared Feldman, uses social TV data to illustrate “how fans are connecting with [a show] emotionally…No one is measuring excitement.”

Canvs, which uses Twitter data captured by Nielsen relevant to TV programming, claims its platform can get a fix on the emotional responses and tone of the audience, filtering and sifting through data based on how people actual “speak” on social media using expressions (WTF?, OMG!, “on fleek”)  that don’t necessarily directly convey how a computer would determine if viewers loved or hated about a show or what’s happening during a show.

“It’s important that there’s data parity, and that we’re speaking the same language as the viewer,” he said. “We’re very millennials focused.”

Canvs then maps those reactions to 56 emotion-based categories, such as love, dislike, annoying, beautiful, and boring. The company believes that such information, when presented and illustrated in Canvs’s Web-driven dashboard, provides valuable feedback for producers and  writers as they maintain and tweak story lines based, for example. And there’s an advertising angle -- the belief that an audience that is emotionally charged is more likely to remember or be more receptive to spots that run during a show.

Canvs is a subscription-based, syndicated platform that currently specializes in analyzing traditional first-run TV shows. Feldman said Canvs will also expand into over-the-top video later this year.

Canvs’s partners and customers include NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, Fox, HBO, Viacom, Creative Artists Agency and United Talent Agency, among others.

More detail about Canvs and its technology/service will be featured in the January 25 edition of Next TV, a weekly section that runs in Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable.

Interlude, a New York-based startup that develops interactive TV shows with a personal twist, said it has locked in a “strategic investment” from Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Studios.

The amount of MGM’s investment was not disclosed, but it was part of an $18.2 million round in Interlude by Warner Music Group, Samsung and returning investors that include Sequoia Capital and Intel Capital. Tied to the investment, MGM chairman and CEO Gary Barber has signed on a “board observer” at Interlude.

Interlude said it will use the funding to broaden content development in areas such as drama, comedy, pop culture, news and music.

Interlude adds interactive elements to the mix by letting users engage directly with programs, by answering polls and questions, selecting camera angles and making decision on the direction of the story being told. Speaking at the Next TV Summit in New York, Interlude president and COO Jim Spare said viewers spend an average of seven minutes clicking on different outcomes.

“We’re finding that young audiences love the idea of being able to talk to a video and interact with a video,” he said then. “It’s truly personal and it’s driving retention and engagement rates.”

“Though video has always been a very powerful storytelling medium, it has not, to date, been able to adjust and adapt from viewer to viewer,” Yoni Bloch, founder and CEO of Interlude, said in a statement about today’s funding announcement. “But we are aiming to allow filmmakers and content to form a unique connection with each viewer.  This has the potential to change the relationship between film and individual audience members.”

“MGM continues to expand its footprint by identifying innovative platforms and technologies, such as Interlude, to introduce new audiences to our creative content,” added Barber. 

MTV and BBC are among examples of programmers that have developed Interlude-powered content.

VideoAmp, a provider of multiscreen video and advertising technologies, has scored a $15 million series A round of funding led by Europe’s RTL Group, which also has interests in Clypd and SpotX.

Prior investors Anthem Venture Partners, Simon Equity Partners, Third Wave Capital, Wavemaker Partners, ZenShin Capital and a new investor, Startup Capital Ventures, joined the round.

VideoAmp, which has raised $17.2 million and was founded in 2014, said it will tap into the new round to accelerate development and marketing of its platform, which aims to bridge traditional TV with digital and OTT content through a mix of cross-screen planning, packaging and optimization technologies for advertisers and media owners.

 “Video consumption has changed dramatically. People are constantly shifting between apps across devices and now advertising can do the same with more precision,” said Ross McCray, VideoAmp’s CEO, ina  statement. “VideoAmp enables advertisers and content owners to transact across all screens seamlessly by focusing on data enablement for buyers and sellers.”

“VideoAmp fits perfectly into RTL Group’s digital strategy as it is complementary to our current ad tech businesses SpotX and Clypd,” added Rhys Noelke, senior vice president strategy, RTL Group, who will also join the VideoAmp board of directors. “For example, VideoAmp’s solutions will enable SpotX publishers to identify, target and optimize the same audience across multiple devices. The transaction with VideoAmp positions RTL Group as the first European broadcaster to invest in the increasingly important field of cross-field expertise.With this move into the digital space with VideoAmp, RTL Group strengthens the advertising technology arm of the recently created RTL Digital Hub.”

RTL has interests in 55 television channels and 29 radio stations and content production around the globe, including RTL Television in Germany, M6 in France, the RTL channels in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Croatia, Hungary and Antena 3 in Spain.

Jaunt, a startup that specializes in virtual reality content, said it has netted a $65 million C round led by new investors The Walt Disney Company, Evolution Media Partners and China Media Capital.

Jaunt noted that Disney’s interest in Jaunt is owned by a wholly owned subsidiary of the company.

The latest round comes more than a year after Highlands Capital Partners led a $28 million Series B in the Palo Alto-based startup. Jaunt, founded in 2013, has raised more than $100 million. Other new investors in the C round include ProSiebenSat.1 SE, Axel Springer SE, and The Madison Square Garden Company. Fenwick & West and The Raine Group advised Jaunt on the transaction.

Jaunt, which has developed a platform for creating and distributing premium live-action VR, said the new funds will enable it to scale up VR production, and advance its professional-grade camera hardware and software production tools and deliver content to a wide range of mobile devices and VR hardware.

Jaunt, which recently introduced a fifth-generation camera system called Jaunt ONE, will also use the funds to grow its teams in Palo Alto headquarters and its new Los Angeles-based  studio.

“This round further illustrates our commitment and dedication to advancing the scope of cinematic VR – for filmmakers, storytellers, and audiences alike,” said Jens Christensen, CEO and co-founder of Jaunt., in a statement. “With the support of these world-class companies, we will explore new avenues, building on our leadership position to deliver amazing VR experiences using best-in-class tools, technology, and creative teams.”

“When Jaunt launched a little over 2 years ago, VR was the domain of a few enthusiasts like us,” added David Anderman, Jaunt’s chief business officer. “Fast forward to today, with the ability to view VR content on any current smartphone, and a half dozen head mounted displays launching in the next 12 months, the addressable number of users will instantly be in the millions, and quickly grow from there.  We look forward to supplying great content to all those users and contributing to the success of VR as a new content medium.”

You.i TV, a Ottawa-based company that specializes in advanced user interfaces for a variety of video platforms, has closed a $15 million round of capital led by Kayne Partners.

You.i TV said the funding will help the company create a channel of partner agencies to build multiscreen apps for its You.i Engine SDK (software development kit). The You.i Engine, the company said, powers apps across iOS, tvOS (the OS for the new Apple TV box), Android, Amazon Fire, Xbox, PlayStation, Roku, smart TVs and set-tops that use the Reference Design Kit, the integrated software stack that’s being managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable.

You.i TV’s announced partners include Sony Crackle (for its Roku app), the TreeHouseGO app for iOS and Android, Corus Entertainment, and shomi, the multiscreen SVOD service from Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications that recently became available to all Canadians. Privately held You.i TV was founded in 2008.

“This is a unique moment in the evolution of television,” Jason Flick, co-founder and CEO of You.i TV, said in a statement.  “Even Apple agrees, saying during its tvOS event last week that ‘the future of TV is apps.’ Everyone in the industry is racing to build direct-to-consumer relationships via applications, but the technical environment is so fragmented that traditional approaches just don’t scale. Our You.i Engine is the missing ingredient broadcasters need to launch truly immersive applications on every screen.”

FreedomPop, a startup that specializes in “free” mobile voice and data services to the cost-conscious, said it has declined “multiple M&A offers” and will instead look to accelerate its growth following a $30 million “B” round.

With the new round factored in, FreedomPop has raised about $52 million. The B round was led by Partech Ventures, along with participating from DCM Capital and Mangrove Capital. A new “strategic investor” is also being added to the round and will be announced later, the company said. Partech Ventures general partner Mark Menell will be joining the FreedomPop board.

Stephen Stokols, CEO of FreedomPop, said the company avoided the temptation to sell because it believes FreedomPop’s growth trajectory will position it to be available at higher valuations down the road, and that FreedomPop wanted to control its own destiny.

FreedomPop’s valuation is “nowhere near where we think it’s going to be in a year or two years’ time,” he said. “There was a lot of stuff that we were just on the cusp of doing. It felt premature to sell at this point.”

FreedomPop said it turned down “multiple” M&A offers. Stokols wouldn’t identify them by name, but said the group included a mix of U.S. carriers, including MSOs, Internet companies and VoIP service providers that were looking to pivot into the mobile arena.

FreedomPop said it will now look to expand its free mobile service (its devices provide a set amount of its free text and voice service before tiered pricing plans apply) to more countries and boost distribution through new “offline” retail partnerships (the bulk of its sales are done direct via the Internet and through affiliate electronic retail partners such as GroupOn).  The company intends to line up some offline retail tests in time for the 2015 holiday season with “at least one, if not two, big name retailers,” Stokols said.

FreedomPop, which launched its free phone service about 18 months ago, claims that it is nearing 1 million subs. It’s in the process of rolling out in the U.K. this summer and expects to expand further into Europe later this year.

FreedomPop is looking to expand as it continues to compete with traditional mobile carriers as well as with Project Fi, a new service from Google that will start at $20 per month and will run on pre-vetted WiFi hot spots and Sprint’s and T-Mobile’s U.S. 4G LTE cellular networks. Cablevision Systems, meanwhile, has launched a WiFi-only service called Freewheel.

Layer3 TV, the self-described “next-gen cable company,” has raised its next round of funding -- a $51 million infusion that comes in as the startup prepares to launch its pay TV service in late summer.

Denver-based Layer3 TV, which announced a $21 million round in March 2014, said it has raised more than $80 million. The startup’s series A lead investors Evolution Media Partners (an investment company whose shareholders include Evolution Media Capital, Creative Artists Agency, TPG Growth and Jeff Skoll/Participant Media) and North Bridge Venture Partners participated in the fresh B round, alongside new investors that were not named.

According to this Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Layer3 TV’s total offering for the new round is $56.6 million, so there appears to be another $5.6 million left to be sold.  

Layer3 TV, founded in 2013 by industry vets Jeff Binder and David Fellows, has not revealed specific plans on how it intends price and package its coming IP-based multiscreen service, and whether it will sell it as a direct-to-consumer offering or if it will team up with cable operators and serve as their cloud-based distribution platform – or perhaps a mix of both.  It also has not announced if its service will be delivered “over-the-top” via the Internet or as a managed IP service piped in via dedicated capacity.

Layer3 TV is expected to support a variety of IP-connected devices, but it has also dropped hints that it will also offer its own consumer gear, including a set-top that would be capable of supporting 4K/Ultra HD.

The company, which opened its Denver headquarters last September, will also be entering the fray as cable operators struggle to add video subs and come up against a new class of “virtual” MVPDs such as Sling TV, Dish Network’s slimmed-down OTT service for cord-cutters, and PlayStation Vue, Sony’s fuller-freight pay TV offering.

What’s clearer is Layer3 TV’s interest in striking distribution deals with programmers. Of recent note, Layer3 TV added programming vets Lynne Costantini (now president of business development at TheBlaze and a former exec of Scripps Networks and Time Warner Cable) and Sean Riley (an exec with multiscreen video tech firm 1 Mainstream who is also late of Fox Networks) to its content advisory board, which is now led by its chief content officer Lindsay Gardner, a programming vet who was formerly with Fox and Cox Communications.

Layer3 TV also operates out of Boston. The size of the company is approaching 100 employees, about double what it was last fall.

The prepared statements tied to this latest round of funding drop a few cryptic hints about what Layer3 TV has in mind.

“Cable television may have dominated the business press this year but consumers continue to crave a simple, yet elegant, solution for managing the newest innovations in video, social and digital,” Binder, Layer3 TV’s CEO, said in a statement. “Layer3 TV is the new cable – putting subscribers at the center of the universe by giving them seamless control of their entertainment relationships.”

“Layer3 TV’s platform is proof that technology and consumer experience can be aligned with programmers’ goals and objectives,” added Rick Hess, the founder and co-managing partner at Evolution Media Partners. “Layer3 TV is rapidly becoming a trusted and valued partner to the content community by enabling consumers to engage with all of the content being distributed through various platforms.”

“From inception, Jeff’s and Dave’s vision of Layer3 TV has been to build the very best cable company and layer in the most cutting edge technology available. Their integration with social media, Internet of Things and diverse universe of content choices will make Layer3 TV the ultimate center of the living room,” said Jamie Goldstein, a partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, also in a statement.

Wibbitz, an Israel-based maker of a text-to-video platform that automates the production process for online video, said it has raised a $8 million Series B round that will fuel its entry into the US market.

NantMobile led the round alongside participation from existing investors Horizon Ventures, lool ventures, Initial Capital and Kima Ventures.

Wibbitz,  which has opened an office in New York, said its platform automatically turns any text-based article or feed into a video, claiming that the capability will help online video publishers create broadcast ready, branded videos “within seconds” for viewing on a wide range of devices. The company also claims that its automated technology also turns existing text-based articles into video summaries without much input or editing from the publisher.

Boiled down further, Wibbitz said its system analyzes text for tone and content to help create a summarized script, which is then automatically matched with visual content and stitched with a narrative voiceover.

“High quality video content is no longer a luxury for publishers - it’s a necessity. Most video content is expensive to produce and maintain, and our technology solves this growing issue,” said Wibbitz co-founder and CEO Zohar Dayan, in a statement. “Newsrooms are shrinking, video production remains costly, and there is huge demand for video ad placement. Wibbitz relieves these pressures so that editors can focus on creating quality content while executives can establish new opportunities for revenue.”

Wibbitz, founded in 2011, said it will be focusing on expanding its business development, sales, marketing, and editorial teams, with plans to hire about 20 new employees in the areas of sales, marketing and editorial, but will keep its R&D group based in Tel Aviv. 

With the new round factored in, Wibbitz has raised about $10.4 million, according to CrunchBase.