Microsoft Ventures, Vulcan Capital, and Arnold Ventures are joining initial investor Voyager Capital in pumping $8.5 million into Make.tv, a Seattle-based cloud video management company, the company announced today.
The new round, previously reported by GeekWire earlier this month, will be used to expand internationally, Make.tv said in a press release. The company has developed a video management portal of sorts that lets video producers source and distribute live video, and has struck deals with customers like BAMtech, which streams Major League Baseball games, and eSports streamer ESLGaming.
Make.tv moved its headquarters from Germany to Seattle as part of the new funding round, and Bruce Chizen, the former CEO of Adobe, will join the board. The addition of Microsoft Ventures and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital were an important part of this deal, said Jonathan Wilner, the company’s new chief marketing officer. “We couldn’t have asked for a better lineup of Northwest VCs,” he said.
Think of Make.tv as “a video router,” Wilner said. Professional video organizations are using Make.tv’s technology, which includes a mobile app called Screentag for video capture, to import video content, process it, and send it out through their channels: BAMtech video reporters use the app to capture those awkward interviews with managers in between innings. Publishers can also use the technology to obtain video from social media channels after working out the rights with the person who shot the video.
Live video remains a valuable commodity in a time-shifted world, and with half the media companies in the U.S. pivoting to video (as they say), it’s a good time to be in the video distribution business. As the need to produce more video with fewer people accelerates, newsrooms and content studios will need help.
Most of Make.tv’s employees are still in Germany, and the company has significant traction in Europe, Wilner said. The company plans to expand engineering and operations in its new Seattle headquarters, and will also focus on U.S. video companies to grow over the next several years.
Editor’s note: This post was updated to clarify that Bruce Chizen is joining the Make.tv board as an independent investor, not on behalf of Voyager.
