Internet, video, networking

Blackwave Raises $16 Million for Internet Video Delivery

Wade Roush 12/3/07

Acton, MA-based Blackwave said today it has raised $16 million in Series B funding to continue development of servers that store video and stream it to consumers over the Internet.

The company, formerly known as Acinion, raised $5 million last year in a funding round led by Globespan Capital Partners and IDG Ventures. Both firms are back on board for the second round, along with new lead funder Sigma Partners.

The company hopes to sell its hardware to content distribution networks and video aggregators, as well as media and entertainment networks—think Akamai Technologies, Brightcove, Google’s YouTube, or Yahoo TV. Acinion-Blackwave has been vague about the nature of its technology, saying only that it manages content “at the title level” and that it “increases video delivery efficiency by a factor of ten while dramatically reducing the cost of content delivery.” (A factor of 10 over what, exactly, the company hasn’t said.)

But the company’s investors are optimistic. “Internet content providers are looking for cost-effective ways to increase performance and reduce costs in storing and delivering ever greater amounts of video,” said Jonathan Seelig, managing director at Globespan and cofounder of Akamai, in a statement. “In our view, many content providers will gravitate to Blackwave’s solution because of its clear benefits for capital and operational cost reduction and improved quality-of-service delivery to end-viewers.”

Blackwave president CEO Robert Rizika is a recent veteran of digital rights management firm Macrovision, and CTO David Carver is former head of research and development at SeaChange International, another Acton company that makes hardware and software for video-on-demand delivery.

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com, call him at (617) 252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wroush.