The acceleration of next-gen online video infrastructure software — something that’s growing in interest among television companies — has become a lot more easier for San Francisco-based firm Bitmovin.
The company has successfully raised $30 million in Series B funding, led by Highland Europe, to help expand its global customer base of TV streaming providers, social media companies and internet companies.
The funds position Bitmovin as a growth operation, allowing it to scale its product research and development and field engineering, while expanding its worldwide team of sales representatives.
Bitmovin technology allows for high-quality streamed video with the use of less bandwidth, eliminating buffering and timely start-up delays.
Among Bitmovin’s customers are Sling, Periscope, FuboTV, Red Bull Media House and The New York Times — with the “ol’ grey lady” now becoming an active player in the delivery of videos to consumers on a daily basis.
The latest round of funding brings the total investment in Bitmovin to $43 million.
Bitmovin created what it says is the first commercial adaptive streaming player to deploying the first containerised encoding service that runs on any cloud provider or in a data center. Further, Bitmovin’s founders co-created the MPEG-DASH video streaming standard that is used by Netflix and YouTube and delivers over 50% of total internet traffic.
And, here’s something both digitally savvy radio broadcasting companies and broadcast TV companies looking for anytime, anywhere viewer connectivity should know: Bitmovin’s technology stack “provides critical API building blocks for content publishers as video consumption moves away from cable and satellite TV towards online video consumed on any device, at any time,” the company notes.
Cisco predicts that 80% of total internet traffic will be comprised of video by 2021.
“As the shift to streaming approaches a tipping-point and becomes the dominant format of consuming sports, news, movies and drama, Bitmovin is addressing an unprecedented market opportunity,” says Fergal Mullen, a partner at Highland Europe. “With video now critical to all social media platforms, as well as many more internet companies and increasingly corporates and educators, Stefan and his team are set to shape the future of video technology.”
