Joost Gets $45M Funding from Sequoia, CBS, Viacom
|
Written By Kate Zimmermann | May 10, 2007 | Share This
|
|
Joost, the video startup from the founders of Kazaa and Skype, just announced a huge $45 million round of funding from Sequoia Capital, CBS, Viacom, Li Ka Shing Foundation, and Index Ventures. Says co-founder Janus Friis,
“This funding represents a tremendous vote of confidence in Joost’s platform. We’ve carefully selected these investors from a variety of interested parties, as they are best-in-class in their respective arenas and bring unique assets to Joost that will enable us to significantly accelerate growth and development of the Company.”
Very interesting selection of VC partners - Sequoia is certainly a good backer, considering their previous involvement in funding Yahoo, Google and YouTube, but the addition of Viacom and CBS emphasizes Joost’s support from content networks. As Kara Swisher suggests,
“They all like Joost because, well, it’s not YouTube, with its thorny copyright and piracy issues and, oh yes, billions of videos watched regularly (making it seem awfully powerful to a group that worships audiences).”
It sure doesn’t hurt to be the video darling of the major media networks - now if only they’d release some primetime content…
Topics: Investment, M&A, Search: Video, Technology |