At Least $277.4 Million Was Raised by Global Private Video Companies in Q1 '10

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At Least $277.4 Million Was Raised by Global Private Video Companies in Q1 '10

Monday, April 5, 2010, 09:50 AM ET
posted by: Will Richmond

At least $277.4 million was raised by global private video companies in Q1 '10 according to company news releases I received and public sources I track. Of the $277.4 million, $175.4 million was raised by 19 U.S. companies and $102 million by 5 internationally-based companies. The financings ranged in size from $775K for Wistia to $50 million for Qiyi, which is the Chinese search engine Baidu's new online video company. Once again companies across the ecosystem, including content aggregation, chips, advertising, encoding, live streaming and consumer devices were represented.

For the U.S. only, the quarterly total was in the middle of the last 3 quarters, coming in ahead of Q4 '09 ($150.1M) and behind Q3 '09 ($180.9M). Investments in the video space remain very healthy, as the economy gradually recovers from the recession and the opportunity for going public brightens a bit. In the last 4 quarters, U.S. video companies have raised at least $570.2 million.

In addition to private financings, there were a number of video-oriented deals announced in Q1 '10. This list includes the acquisition of Quattro Wireless by Apple for $275 million, Vudu by Walmart for $100 million (rumored), StudioNow by AOL for $36.5 million and Multicast Media by KIT Digital for $18 million. In addition, during the quarter broadband equipment maker Calix went public, raising about $82 million, video ringtone company Vringo filed to go public to raise $64.3 million, independent video producer EQAL bought out its investor Spark Capital and Deluxe bought the assets of MediaRecall. The big negative of Q1 was Veoh's bankruptcy after raising more than $70 million. Looking ahead, Q2 '10 got off to a fast start with Vidyo raising $25 million.

Following are the financings that I tracked during the quarter, the date disclosed and new investors identified if applicable. Links are provided to the companies' press releases, or to relevant media coverage if none could be found (note that I haven't verified media coverage with companies themselves). If I've missed anything or you find an inaccuracy, please post a comment.

U.S.:

Mo-DV ($3.6M) - Jan 5 - Existing investors

Transpera ($2M) - Jan 14 - Existing investors

Beezag ($2.5M) - Jan 24 - Angel investors

Ustream ($20M) - Feb 2 - Softbank (potential eventual investment - $75M)

BrightRoll ($10M) - Feb 3 - Scale Venture Partners, existing investors

IVT ($5.5M) - Feb 9 - Syncom Venture Partners, Barshop Ventures, existing investors

Encoding.com ($1.25M) - Feb 10 - Metamorphic Ventures, angels

Zenverge (Undisclosed) - Feb 10 - Motorola Ventures, existing investors

TidalTV ($16M) - Feb 16 - Comcast Interactive Capital, NEA, Valhalla Partners

YuMe ($25M) - Feb 17 - Menlo Ventures, existing investors

Clicker ($11M) - Feb 18 - JAFCO Ventures, exiting investors

Vook ($2.5M) - Feb 19 - Angel investors

Quantenna ($15M) - Feb 24 - Existing investors

ZillionTV ($10M) - Feb 24 - Qwest

Ubicom ($1.8M) - Mar 8 - Existing investors

SiBEAM ($36.5M) - Mar 9 - Foundation Capital, existing investors

Panvidea ($2M) - Mar 18 - DFJ Gotham Ventures, existing investors

Avaak ($10M) - Mar 22 - Qualcomm, existing investors

Wistia ($775K) - Mar 24 - Angel investors

International:

Siano ($23.5M) - Jan 11 - Existing investors

Guvera ($20M) - Jan 18 - AMMA Private Investment

Voddler ($3.5M) - Feb 8 - Eqvitec Partners

Qiyi/Baidu - ($50M) - Feb 26 - Providence Equity Partners

Videoplaza ($5M) Mar 18 - Creandum, Northzone

Categories: Deals & Financings, International

Related Analyses:

At Least $150.1 Million Was Raised by Video Companies in Q4 '09 (12/22/09)

At Least $180.9 Million Was Raised by Video Companies in Q3 '09 (10/01/09)

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Financings