Israeli-Italian start-up beeTV Ltd. has raised $b million in its second financing round from Italian venture capital fund Innogest. beeTV has developed a personal television suggestion engine that helps users select programs and channels, based on their profile.
beeTV plans to invest in sales and expand its penetration into the US and Far East markets.
beeTV chairman Rodolfo Hecht, CEO Yoram Granit, and CTO Yaniv Solnik founded the company in 2006. The company says that it seeks to solve the choice paradox in contemporary television.
The paradox referred to is the sheer volume of content available on television, which while increasing viewing options, also harms content quality because viewers do not know what is available, when, or where, and therefore cannot pick a suitable program.
The company has developed what it calls a Personal Content Channel (PCC), located on a subscriber's set-top box. beeTV developed a proprietary, contextual matching algorithm that identifies the subscriber, searches all the television content sources, and pushes the relevant content to that subscriber.
Innogest, Italy's largest venture capital fund is not well known in Israel. beeTV may have attracted attention, and capital, because the company is based in Milan.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 4, 2009
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