Boxee scores $16.5 million in Series C funding round

Boxee today said it had landed $16.5 million in Series C financing from current investors as well as new investors Pitango Venture Capital and SoftBank Capital, saying it had plans to grow its development team, add more content and expand its international operations.

The company, which currently sells its Boxee Box in 30 countries, says it plans to add a dozen employees in its New York office and an equal amount in Israel. A company spokesman said one new employee based in London will work exclusively to add content abroad.

Avner Ronen, Boxee CEO, said one of the company's most critical challenges was "to add more movies, TV shows, and video while at the same time making it easier to discover and watch them. Many of you would like to see Boxee handle all the video on their [customers] TV with no need to switch inputs. We'd like to get there, too."

Boxee has been working to that end, adding Netflix and Vudu content recently, and, said Ronen, working with ViewSonic on a TV based on Boxee. Ronen said Boxee also is working with Iomega on a Boxee NAS device.

"We are more hungry and driven than ever. Less naive, but dreaming even more ambitious dreams," said Ronen. "We are really excited to welcome our new investors and thankful for the continued support of our existing investors.  Most of all we're happy that we get to continue to improve Boxee for our users."

The latest round values the company at $66.5 million. As part of the funding deal, Tel Aviv-based Pitango Venture Capital's managing general partner Isaac Hillel will join Boxee's board of directors. Current Boxee investors include Spark Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and Union Square Ventures, which joined forces for a Series B round of $6 million in August 2009.

 

For more:
- see this article
- see this blog

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