Israeli start-up Kaltura has completed a $20 million third round of financing. The round was led by new investor Nexus Venture Partners with participation from Intel Capital, existing investors .406 Ventures and Avalon Ventures, and technology lender Silicon Valley Bank.
The company has developed an open-source online video platform.
According to IVC, Kaltura has raised $14 million in previous rounds.
Kaltura was founded in 2006 by its chairman and CEO Ron Yekutiel, VP business & community development Dr. Shay David, president Dr. Michal Tsur, and CTO Eran Etam. Its technology enables any website to incorporate video, picture, and voice functionalities, including video management, searching, uploading, importing, editing, annotating, remixing, sharing, and advertising. The platform supports desktop computers, tablet computers, television, and other devices.
" Kaltura's financial success and the premium investors that it attracts demonstrate once again that there is indeed no dissonance between doing good, and doing well," Yekutiel said. "The availability, flexibility, and extensibility of our system and the powerful community behind it are dramatically lowering the barrier for the creation and consumption of integrated rich-media, paving the way for a much richer web experience for all."
"We constantly survey both the online-video and the open source markets for promising investments, so we were delighted to find in Kaltura a company that is hugely successful by combining the best technology with a powerful open source business model," said Naren Gupta from Nexus Venture Partners.
Kaltura's main competitor is Brightcove, which is expected to make an IPO shortly. Kaltura's platform is currently in use by some 100,000 companies and users, and thousands of people contribute to its open-source code. Among its customers are Fox, Paramount, HBO, Warner Brothers, The Times of India, Best Buy, Texas Instruments, Coldwell Banker, MIT, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, NYU, Columbia University, and Siemens.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 14, 2011
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2011