By Nitasha Tiku 2/08/12 3:59pm

Venture Capitalism

blip

Romney’s Former Firm Bain Capital Joins $12 M Round In Brooklyn-Based Blip Networks

Finally, a Bain Capital story that doesn’t involve the term “vulture capital.” This morning, Blip, a video network highlighting original web series, announced a financing round of more than $12 million. Bain Capital Ventures, Canaan Partners, and other previous investors contributed $6.5 million as well as debt from Silicon Valley Bank totaling about $6 million.

The company, formerly known as Blip.tv, filed a Form D in December of last year, signifying that they had already raised $6 million from Bain and Canaan Partners.

In the press release, Blip claimed revenue had grown 100 percent year-over-year thanks to 13 million monthly uniques in the U.S. and 30 million monthly viewers globally. The new funding, said Blip, will be used to develop tools and services for web series producers, invest in its advertising and distribution platforms, and “significantly expand” syndication relationships.

Betabeat spoke with Blip COO Steve Brookstein to talk about the competition for eyeballs, whether YouTube is a friend or foe, and if he’s voting for Bain founder Mitt Romney. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 1/05/12 12:58pm

Kids These Days

All your young adults are belong to us.

Alloy, to Further Dominate Young Adult Market with ‘Next Generation Media’ Factory

With 3 percent of Twitter’s servers devoted to Justin Bieber, there is no denying millenials are a power force on the internet. Alloy, the creator of books like Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, among others, has honed its formula for churning out youth bestsellers and accompanying spin-offs to perfection.

Tween and teen-oriented page turners were Alloy’s bread and butter, but the company has lost its faith in books; instead turning to the web and television for eyeballs and mindshare. Alloy Digital, a division of Alloy Media + Marketing, says it reaches more than 60 70 million youngsters a month through its network of websites including the websites for the aforementioned series, new-fangled products like this confusing Facebook app, and Teen.com. Read More

By Ben Popper 11:23am

Web TV Wars

Oatmeal really nailed this one

The Web TV Wars Are Starting to Get Really Bloody

Netflix sent the blogosphere into a tizzy earlier this week when it announced it was dividing itself in two: Netflix the streaming video business, and Qwikster, the disastrously named DVD by mail step child. A lot of articles were written trying to parse the news, but the general sentiment was confusion.

The truth is that the TV business is on the brink of a seismic shift, akin to what has already happened in music with the iTunes store and Spotify. But the entrenched interests, both the networks and the cable companies, are doing everything they can to make sure they keep control during this change.

So you get a situation like Netflix and Qwickster, which as Evolver.fm Elliot Van Buskirk explains, is all about the licensing silly: Read More

By Ben Popper 8/25/11 5:14pm

Web TV Wars

Image via We Are NY Tech

Shelby.tv Rolls Out Partnerships With Hulu, College Humor and Tumblr

Techstars NY graduate Shelby.tv has been pretty quiet since raising $1.5 million in July. But today the young start-up, which aims to provide an immersive experience for watching, sharing and discovering web video, announced that content from the typically isolated Hulu will be available on Shelby.tv. Videos from IAC’s College Humor also came online today, along with Tumblr integration. Read More

By Clay Whittaker 8/24/11 8:45am

Web TV Wars

Hmmm...where can I find me shows?

When Fox Delayed Its Hulu Shows, Piracy Shot Way Up

A week after Fox made users wait to watch new shows on Hulu for free, tech site TorrentFreak says they’ve seen a drastic rise in the volume of illegal downloads of Fox shows.

TorrentFreak reported that over the first five days of Fox’s service change, Hell’s Kitchen saw an over 100 percent rise in illegal downloads compared with three previous episodes, and that MasterChef saw a rise of over 189 percent for the same comparison. Read More

By Ben Popper 8/10/11 11:56am

Screen Gems

It's about time

Get Baller with Boxee’s New iPad App

If you’re a big time VC or founder with a sweet exit, you probably get your floss on with an iPad in every room of the house. To get the full MTV Cribs Tech Edition, it’s crucial to have a fantastic stream of videos running at all time or ready to go with a single swipe.

We’ve had the Boxee in our living room for a while and love the ability to stream Netflix (all six seasons of the Larry Sanders show) and easily pull up videos we bookmarked from the web. Now we can double down on our home entertainment with Boxee’s new iPad app.  Read More

By Ben Popper 4/11/11 3:02pm

Web TV

VHX boys

Emmy Award-Winning Internet Fame Professors Debut New Video Service, VHX

For a long time, web video platforms didn’t treat viewing the same way as traditional TV. Each clip was an autonomous unit. Maybe users got a few recommendations after they finished watching a video, but there was no sense of a continuous curated stream of entertainment like there is while watching network TV.

VHX, which launched today, is looking to use your social network to program your web video watching. Users open the service up to their contacts on Gmail, Facebook and Twitter, then get a dashboard of videos pulled from the friends they are following. Read More