Online Video Service Joost Gets Whopping $45 Million Funding; Investors Include CBS & Viacom
By Rafat Ali - Wed 09 May 2007 09:50 PM PST
The much-hyped online video service Joost, which launched in open-beta last week, has raised a big round of funding: $45 million. The round included Sequioa Capital, Index Ventures, Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong tycoon, and CBS...all have taken “small minority” stakes in the start-up, the FT story says. Viacom is also among the investors (gets minority stake), although the nature of its backing has not been disclosed (it did a broad distribution deal with Joost...there could be some contra advertising across Viacom properties, but that’s my guess).
Joost was hatched by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom last year, and seed-funded by the money they got from selling Skype to eBay.
From the release: Joost expects to work with Li and his affiliated companies, to expand its distribution in China and other parts of Asia.
Earlier this year online video rival Brightcove raised $59.5 million in its third round from NYT and others, following a $16 million second round last year.
