Time Warner Investments led a $12 million Series B funding round for video interface maker You.i TV as the media conglomerate looks to ramp up direct-to-consumer streaming for its Turner Networks properties.
Scott Levine, managing director of Time Warner Investments, will now sit on the board of You.i TV, which backs such popular OTT platforms as Sony Crackle and Canadian cable SVOD play shomi, as well as Turner’s soon-to-launch FilmStruck.
In announcing the investment, Time Warner Inc. said that Turner has begun standardizing its application development and delivery on the You.i Engine platform. Earlier this week, Turner Networks CEO John Martin described the launch of direct-to-consumer extensions of Turner brands including CNN and TNT “imperative.”
"We are building the capabilities to move to becoming capable of offering VOD – not only domestically, but globally – and then building out the things that you need to be able to do to be an end-to-end provider, including customer relationships, billing and so on,” Martin told Recode.
“Delivering video directly to consumers is becoming vital to the media industry, and offering a compelling user interface & app experience is an important piece of this value chain,” Levine said in a statement. “We were immediately impressed with the You.i TV products, seeing how they create high-quality, unique branded experiences across multiple device platforms, while powering higher engagement rates with users.”
Ottawa-based You.i TV has raised around $21 million so far, which included a funding round last year led by Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors.
For more:
- read this You.i TV press release
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