Kaltura Raises $47 Mio on the Heels of Massive Growth
New York, NY (USA), February 2014 - The open-source video platform Kaltura has secured an additional $47 million of funding. The financing round was led by new investors SAP Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, Commonfund Capital, and Brazil-based Gera Ventures. There was also participation from existing investors: 406 Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, Inc., and Silicon Valley Bank. Kaltura will use the additional capital to further accelerate product development and extend operations into Brazil, Mexico, China, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and Korea.
The funding comes on the heels of yet another phenomenal year, which further cemented Kaltura as a market leader, as reaffirmed by leading analysts such as Gartner and Forrester, and as recognized by leading publications. Kaltura was recently named "One of 10 Wildly Successful Startups" by Inc. Magazine; "One of 5 Companies That Made Media Consumption Smarter This Year" by Forbes; and "One of 5 Companies That Transformed Enterprise Communication in 2013R" and "One of Top 5 Startups Revolutionizing Education" by Business Insider.
"The rapid adoption of our technology around the globe is a testament to the central role that video plays in every facet of our connected lives. We are proud to enable and streamline the creation of hundreds of video-enabled applications and workflows and to assist hundreds of millions of people to improve the way they work, learn, collaborate, and entertain using video," said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Chairman and CEO.
Kaltura customers include leading media companies such as HBO, ABC, Warner Brothers, Paramount, DirecTV, Turner, and Wikipedia; leading corporations such as Bank of America, Intel, SAP, Century 21, Ericsson, Danone, Discount Tire, Accenture, AstraZeneca, Groupon, Nestle, Philips and IKEA; and leading educational institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Durham, Warwick, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, California State University, and NYU. Kaltura distributors and channel partners include Atos, InterCall, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Ellemedia, and Cognos Online.
"Following our success in North America and Europe, we started addressing Asia Pacific and Latin America and were met by explosive demand," added Yekutiel. "We will continue to grow our operations in all four regions this year, as well as further accelerate our product development. Upcoming releases include advanced live, OTT, analytics, and monetization solutions for media companies and service providers; webcasting capabilities for enterprises; and lecture capture capabilities for educational institutions."
Kaltura continues to introduce innovative video solutions at a staggering pace, with the aid of the more than 50,000 community members. Media companies are empowered by Kaltura to boost their audience reach, user engagement, and revenue with a cutting edge monetization suite; the market’s fastest loading video player; and powerful distribution tools. Kaltura is also disrupting the market with its turnkey OTT solution Kaltura MediaGo™, which allows content owners to easily launch their own Netflix-like video portal.
In the enterprise, Kaltura’s CorporateTube™ social-video portal dominates the market, powering knowledge sharing, collaboration and unleashing employee creativity and participation. New integrations with IBM Connections and Jive, along with Kaltura’s SharePoint extension, push the envelope for enterprise communication. Kaltura additionally addresses external marketing and communication use cases.
On the education front, Kaltura is redefining the education experience, powering all of the latest video-based trends, including Flipped Classrooms, MOOCs, SPOCs, and social learning. Kaltura’s CampusTube™ social-video portal and deep integration with all learning- management systems, including Blackboard, Moodle, Desire2Learn, Sakai, and the upcoming release of Kaltura’s own Canvas App, enable the most engaging and effective educational video experiences across the campus and beyond.
"SAP Ventures is excited to be joining forces with Kaltura. Video is the way that most people prefer to consume information, which means video infrastructure is not only an essential element for media businesses, but also educational institutions and enterprises," said David Hartwig, Managing Director at SAP Ventures. "We believe that Kaltura offers the most innovative solution and a capable team that has executed flawlessly during the last few years. It’s a great synergy because SAP Ventures is uniquely capable of helping Kaltura reach these three customer bases globally, with our recent addition of a market-development function to our firm."
Yekutiel commented, "We chose SAP Ventures because of their unparalleled dedication to the business development of their portfolio companies, a commitment shown by hiring a team to focus specifically on this. As a VC firm focused on enterprise software opportunities, SAP Ventures' proven team and focus on customer acquisition cannot be beat."
"Video will soon constitute two thirds of all mobile data, and as such is an area of great interest for us as a leader in enabling mobility," said Upal Basu, Partner at Nokia Growth Partners (NGP). "Kaltura’s business progress and market-leading HTML5-based video technology made it a natural choice for NGP. We look forward to collaborating closely with the company and assisting with global expansion."
"Kaltura has shown great traction in Latin America already, and we expect that to grow significantly now with this new backing and expansion in the region," said Leila Orenstein, Partner at Gera Ventures. "We are especially excited about Kaltura’s business in the education sector, which is our own focus as well, but we also look forward to helping generate new business in all three target verticals through our broad network of connections."