With New Funding in Tow, Boxee Will Head for CE Devices
by Sam Dean - Aug. 14, 2009Comments (0)- Related Blog Posts
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Among open source media center applications for managing video, music and other entertainment content, Boxee has emerged as a clear leader. This week the company announced that it has received a $6 million injection of venture capital funding, led by Boston-based General Catalyst with participation by prior investors Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures.
The investment brings Boxee's total funding to $10 million, obtained in under a year. As Boxee officials noted in their announcement of the funding: "Boxee today is mostly serving a tech-savvy audience – those who feel comfortable connecting a computer to a TV." For example, Boxee is very popular with Apple TV users, who manage media with it, and are able to watch video content on big-screen TVs. So what lies ahead for it, and how can it gain appeal beyond a tech-savvy audience?
According to Boxee's announcement:
"To make Boxee more accessible for a mainstream consumer it’s important for us to get Boxee embedded into connected TVs and Blu-Ray players, game consoles and set-top boxes. We’re already talking to device makers to ensure Boxee works on a variety of platforms for 2010."
TheAppleBlog also notes this:
'"According to CEO Avner Ronen, the company has recently seen 'increased pace from the biz dev side.' Translated from marketing speak, that means consumer electronics devices want Boxee. The company plans to nearly double its staff off 11 to bring more content and more apps to Boxee."
And NewTeeVee adds:
"The company will use its newfound funding to bring on additional staff to get more content on the platform, port Boxee over to consumer electronics devices, and bring on engineering to build out its app section."
As we reported here, Boxee has been running a series of Developer Challenges focused on increasing the number of Boxee applications. These have ushered in community-built plug-ins for Boxee that facilitate social music and photo sharing, and much more.
If you haven't tried Boxee, you really should. There is now a pre-release version available for Windows (in addition to Mac and Linux versions), and Boxee has been striking deals with content providers, including Major League Baseball, to offer compelling content. With solid funding, partnerships, and plans to put Boxee directly into consumer electronics devices, Boxee is shaping up as a remarkable open source success story.
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