Encoding.com, a provider of cloud-based video encoding, said it has completed a $3.5 strategic “B” round led by Harmonic.
The new infusion, which raises Encoding.com’s total funding past $8 million, will be used to help Encoding.com scale up its marketing and sales capabilities, Jeff Malkin, Encoding.com’s president, said.
He said Encoding.com and Harmonic have been working together for more than six months, noting that his company integrated ProMedia Carbon, Harmonic’s file-based transcoding system, to the Encoding.com platform in April. That move, he said, has helped Harmonic add cloud-based media processing services to its portfolio, complementing its premises-based video processing capabilities.
“We’ll also be working on new products together,” Malkin said.
He said the Harmonic partnership should also open new doors for Encoding.com, whose “sweet spot” is media and entertainment companies, counting Discovery Communications, AOL, MTV, ESPN among its customers.
While some of those customers have their own encoding farms, they also look to Encoding.com’s cloud-based, software-as-a-service video processing model to tack on capacity when faced with usage spikes.
Founded in 2008, San Francisco-based Encoding.com employs fewer than 50 people, but expects to more than double its headcount over the next year, according to Malkin. Its competitors include companies such as Telestream, Brightcove, Elemental Technologies, Imagine Communications and Envivio, which recently launched a cloud-based platform called Nuage.
“Encoding.com has pioneered and continues to lead the cloud-based, video software-as-a-service market,” Patrick Harshman, Harmonic’s CEO, said in a statement. “As the market increasingly embraces the cloud, we look forward to working closely with Encoding.com to offer our customers the most compelling solutions to meet the rapid changes within the video ecosystem.”
