Tvinci, the leading Pay-OTT Platform provider, today announced that its year of sharp growth and development has been further boosted with a $4.5 million round of funding that will be invested in its OTT 2.0 Platform development and international expansion into new markets.The round was led by the companys existing investors, Kaedan Capital and Zohar Gilon, and new investor Trellas Enterprises. The announcement comes as the world looks to the concept of delivering video over the internet ( Over-the-Top') as the major way in which consumers will access the growing amount of available video content and programming.
Momentum for the consumption of content this way continues to build. Industry analyst group comScore, in its comScore Video Metrix service (September 2012), reported that in August 2012 an all-time high of 188 million US Internet users watched 37.7 billion online content videos. The investment follows the most successful year to date in Tvinci's five year history. The company has seen revenues double every year since 2008, and triple in 2012 compared to 2011. It has secured 7 new TV operators as customers, including Liberty Global, owner of multiple cable operators throughout Europe; Elisa, Finland's second largest telco operator; and other major media companies and operators in Europe and Asia, to be announced in the coming months. To answer the growing demand for its technology and services, Tvinci has grown its team from 25 to 50 employees by the end of the year.
Five years ago we began to advocate cross-device Pay-OTT TV as the future of video delivery for both TV operators and industry newcomers, and we are now truly seeing its widespread adoption, said Ofer Shayo, CEO, Tvinci. We now see a second wave' of OTT deployments - cable, satellite and telco TV operators that launched multiple video apps and websites over the past 3-4 years, now incorporating OTT video as part of their core TV offering, and looking to do more than just stream content to connected devices. Our OTT 2.0 platform answers this immediate need not only for a new delivery method to connected devices, but also a brand new TV experience. This momentum powered our success this year, and has put us in a position to explore opportunities in wider global territories. With an established footprint in Europe, we are now gaining traction in Asia, Latin America and the US, and see these markets as huge potential addressable markets.
Tvinci provides pay TV operators a white-label platform for Over-the-Top TV across devices. It is the only platform that offers both an OTT back-end and an extensive user experience management system that drives TV applications for the delivery of live content and VOD on smartphones, tablets, connected TVs, set-top boxes and virtually any device. Its new OTT 2.0 Platform enables viewers to personalize their experience on any video enabled connected device including the living room TV or set-top box with a finger tap, thus offering users the option of bringing their social network into the TV experience. Since Tvinci is also the operators OTT back-end (unlike social TV apps'), this is the first time personalization, social content discovery and interaction, as well as control of the TV via the tablet/smartphone in companion mode, are all fully integrated into the core offering of the operator, and do not come in the form of add-on apps. Tvinci also solves the challenge pay TV operators face as they transition from one subscription per family', to 5 users per family, each using 2-4 connected devices, on both the back-end and front-end interface.
Tvincis platform was named Best Web TV Technology' at the CSI Awards in 2011, and was recently the highest ranked OTT solution by digital media solution architect and blogger Nicolas Weil, about whom he said Tvinci is definitely a must-have actor in any RFP you shall organize - and my personal number one choice if I was to launch a new service now.
