As reported by Tornado Insider, Italy-based beeTV, a provider of a personalized entry system for television viewers, has raised 5.6 million in a Series B round of funding. The investment was led by Italian VC firm Innogest. The deal will fund the companys growth, including plans to invest in sales and expand its penetration into the US and Asian markets. Erik Lumer, founder of Bubblegum and Graphvine, will join beeTV board on behalf of Innogest.
beeTV was founded in 2006 in an aim to deal with the stunning range of content currently offered on TV. The company believes that number of choices actually restricts viewers rather than improves their TV experience. Subscribers must sift through the vast amount of content available on their platform in order to choose what they ultimately would like to watch. Meanwhile, preferences seem to change depending on the time of the day, context, and mood of the viewer. According to beeTV, solutions such as channel surfing and electronic program guides fail to please subscribers as the choices are presented in an inherently bland, impersonal and time-consuming manner.
beeTV has chosen a different approach. The company offers subscribers their own so-called Personal Content Channel or PCC, which is placed in their set-top box (be it IPTV, cable, satellite, mobile or DTT), their mobile phones and their PC. The device identifies the subscriber, searches all available content sources, including broadcast TV, subscription TV, VoD, SVoD, PPV, and PVR/Catch-up and uses a contextual matching algorithm to decide on the relevancy of content to the subscriber. The PCC then pushes the relevant content through a personalized channel, while anticipating the viewers desires by taking into account context, schedule, behavior, and even mood.
The white-labeled PCC is designed to serve TV, mobile and PC screens. Providers can integrate all three screen PCCs or choose a combination that best fits their own marketing and distribution needs. The company launched the beeSTBox product (for TV) in September 2008, and the beeWEB (for PC) and beeMOBILE in March of this year.