Motorola Invests In BlackArrow
Amount of Funding in Dynamic Advertising-Insertion Startup Not Disclosed
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 11/16/2010 9:14:15 AM
Motorola Mobility has invested an undisclosed amount in BlackArrow, a provider of dynamic ad-insertion systems for video.
Terms of the investment were not disclosed. The funding comes through Motorola Mobility, the mobile phone, cable set-top and broadband equipment entity. Motorola expects to split into two companies as early as January 2011, with the other entity -- Motorola Solutions -- comprising the enterprise, government and public-safety business units.
BlackArrow's other investors include Comcast, Cisco Systems, Intel Capital, Mayfield Fund, NDS Group and Polaris Venture Partners. Prior to Motorola's investment, BlackArrow had raised a reported $58 million to date.
"Motorola Ventures invests in companies that accelerate our business strategy and are integral to our overall innovation efforts," Harshul Sanghi, Motorola Ventures managing ventures, said in a prepared statement. "Motorola's presence and leadership in the video content delivery space will provide significant visibility for BlackArrow within their key markets."
Motorola and BlackArrow said they will develop integrated addressable media and advertising solutions for set-top boxes and mobile devices, as well as for "cloud-based, hosted video services" and IP video delivery. San Jose, Calif.-based BlackArrow said it will use the additional capital from the investment for new product development and deployment of its advanced-advertising system to networks and TV content distributors.
"Motorola's reputation for technological excellence, its rich and diverse product mix and its worldwide customer base create a powerful opportunity to accelerate and drive scale, increasing the value around the business of advanced advertising," BlackArrow CEO Dean Denhart said in a statement. "Our work together will enable programmers and distributors to monetize premium television programming across a broad spectrum of New TV platforms and devices."
BlackArrow has announced trial deployments with Comcast, Bresnan Communications, Rainbow Media and Fox Cable Networks. The startup has about 60 employees.
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