Simple.TV has received a $5.7 million cash infusion from New World Ventures to expand its DVR box product line and, it hopes, expand its presence with other consumer electronics vendors.
Founder-CEO Mark Ely told TechCrunch that the hardware manufacturer is "looking to find ways to take its discovery and access platform and expand beyond just broadcast content through a digital antenna… to include cable content and over-the-top content from services like Netflix and Hulu."
That's quite an expansion for a company that started life last year as a way for cord-cutters to record programming received via HD antennas and then stream that content to connected devices. As part of the first product iteration, Simple.TV sold boxes at retail for $149. Consumers could then use the devices to record individual episodes or full seasons of TV shows and then watch them on iOS-, Android- and Roku-platformed devices.
According to the TechCrunch story, Simple.TV now wants to become more than "a hardware manufacturer with some cool software attached" and find ways to get on still more devices by working with third party CE manufacturers.
"[Y]ou won't have to have a Simple.TV device to use the Simple.TV apps on these new devices," the story said.
In addition to helping fund Simple.TV's aggressive product expansion, NWV partner Matt McCall has joined Simple.TV's board of directors.
For more:
- TechCrunch had this story
Related article:
Simple.TV opens online store; international IPTV metrics sought