Kaltura Raises $20M in Funding

Kaltura just announced that it has secured $20 million in a round of financing led by new investors Nexus Venture Partners and Intel Capital. Existing investors .406 Ventures, Avalon Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank also participated in the fundraising round.

The Israeli company is the developer of the first and only open source online video platform. Kaltura enables web publishers to integrate its video and interactive rich media functionalities and customize it to the particular interests and needs of their target audiences. Over 100,000 web publishers use Kaltura's technology, including Fox, Paramount, HBO, Warner Brothers, Texas Instruments and Siemens, among others.

"Kaltura is a juggernaut. They're exceptionally well positioned to deliver online video at a time in the market when demand for online video is exploding," said Maria Cirino, managing director of .406 Ventures. "It has been an exciting ride and we look forward to the next chapter with this innovative company led by a passionate group of world class entrepreneurs."

Organizations use Kaltura to enhance their websites, web-services, or web-platforms with advanced customized video, photo and audio functionalities with rich-media ingestion, encoding, management, publishing, delivery, distribution, engagement, monetization, and analysis. The platform supports delivery to PCs, mobile devices, tablets, TVs, and other connected devices, with expertise in all related technologies.

"Kaltura is changing the game by tearing down the walled-garden approach around rich-media, fostering openness, embracing interoperability, and harnessing global innovation. 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," said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Chairman & CEO.

Kaltura was founded in 2006 and launched in late 2007. Since January 2008, Kaltura has worked with the WikiMedia Foundation to help bring rich-media collaboration to wiki sites, including Wikipedia.

"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. "Video is a powerful tool for enterprises and consumers and online video is rapidly being introduced into every website, web platform, and web service in the world. It is a fertile opportunity for a formidable success of an open-source leader like Kaltura."

In related news, Intel has announced six new deals totaling $26 million in a number of startups developing technology for mobile platforms, including the investment in Kaltura.

"There is significant demand to facilitate the handling of online video on three screens within customized work-flows in tightly integrated applications," said Lisa Lambert, vice president, Intel Capital. "Kaltura is optimally positioned to take full advantage of this opportunity with its open technology, impressive customer base, and strong developer community."