Existing Investor NEA Also Joins Round MILPITAS, Calif., Sept. 22
MILPITAS, Calif., Sept. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Vuclip, an emerging pioneer in mobile video search and delivery across an increasingly fragmented mobile landscape, today announced a Series B funding round of $6 million led by Jafco Ventures. Existing investor New Enterprise Associates also participated in the round.
Vuclip's cloud-based, real-time transcoding service delivers more than one million mobile videos every day to mobile users on more than 3,000 unique mobile handsets in 150 countries around the world, including India, China and the United States. Vuclip's service enables video to play on any phone with a mobile browser and native media player. The company partners with numerous content owners around the globe to deliver premium, targeted content to consumers that is monetized through Vuclip's proprietary dynamic ad stitching technology.
"We've built a service that addresses browser and device fragmentation issues for mobile video so consumers can watch whatever video they want, when they want it, wherever they happen to be," said Nickhil Jakatdar, CEO and co-founder of Vuclip. "Our solution gives media companies access to a global audience and allows them to mobilize online video assets, breaking out of the current paradigm where fragmentation and inter-operability issues limit mobile distribution."
Nick Sturiale, General Partner at Jafco, will join the company's Board along with Kittu Kolluri, General Partner at NEA. Sturiale previously was a managing director with The Carlyle Group and, prior to that, was a General Partner with Sevin Rosen..
"Vuclip is one of a small handful of very interesting companies addressing the mobile platform silo problem," said Sturiale. "Their service scales beautifully, provides deep native hardware integration and makes watching video clips simple, whether the user is on a high-end smart phone in the US or a lower-end feature phone in an emerging market."
About Vuclip
Vuclip is one of the most widely-used mobile video search portals in the world, and the only mobile video service that dynamically transcodes, optimizes and delivers any Web video to any mobile phone across all wireless networks in real-time. The service is free, although standard carrier data charges apply. Vuclip also enables online publishers and content owners to mobilize their video content through its "white-labeled" Vuclip Video API Program. Vuclip has 40 employees and is based in the Silicon Valley, with offices in Beijing and Delhi.
About Jafco Ventures
Based in Palo Alto, California, JAFCO Ventures is a venture capital partnership focused on companies that are emerging leaders in the communications, Internet, semiconductor and software industries. JAFCO Ventures was formed in 2003 and currently manages more than $350 million in capital. The fund's charter is to invest in venture opportunities with true breakout potential where JAFCO Ventures can meaningfully add value with capital, the experience of seasoned venture capital investors, and the deployment of our Asia business development team, to help portfolio companies generate revenue from customers in Japan and other parts of Asia. For more information, visit www.jafco.com.
About NEA
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a leading venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs create and build major new enterprises that use technology to improve the way we live, work and play. Since its founding in 1978, the firm has followed the same core principles: supporting its entrepreneurs, providing an excellent return to its limited partners, and practicing its profession with the highest standards and respect. Through its affiliated funds, NEA focuses on investments at all stages of a company's development, from seed stage through IPO. With approximately $8.5 billion in committed capital, NEA's experienced management team has invested in over 650 companies, of which more than 160 have gone public and more than 250 have been acquired. NEA has U.S. offices in Chevy Chase, Maryland; Menlo Park, California; and Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. has offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, India and New Enterprise Associates (Beijing), Ltd. has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit www.nea.com.
(C) 2009 Xinlab, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
SOURCE Vuclip
