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Digital Payments Innovator Jumio Raises $25.5 Million

Posted: 12 Jan 2012 03:45 AM PST

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Kicking off the new year with a fresh wad of cash: according to an SEC filing, mobile and online payments startup Jumio has raised $25.5 million in funding on top of the $6.5 million it raised from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin – and others – back in March 2011.

Jumio confirmed the financing round but declined to provide more details (which investors participated and what they plan to use the additional capital for) at this time.

The startup’s twist on helping e-merchants process card payments digitally is to leverage webcams (and smartphone cameras) to read credit cards rather than making people enter their details or swiping their cards. Its solution, called Netswipe, in other words turns phone cameras and webcams into credit card readers.

Jumio was co-founded by Daniel Mattes, who sold his latest company, Jajah, to Telefonica for $207 million. Mattes is called the "Bill Gates of the Alps" in some parts.

Good to see a European entrepreneur swing for the fences once more.



Here We Go Again: DC Taxi Head Says Uber Is “Operating Illegally,” To Be “Dealt With”

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 08:10 PM PST

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Uber is once again getting attacked by a crusty local bureaucracy, this time in the federal capital of crusty bureaucracies — and its newest city — Washington, DC.

In case you don’t remember, the first attack was back in 2010, when San Francisco’s city transportation agency threatened the private car company’s executives with jail time and fines because it was operating an alternative transportation service. The differences got worked out, but Uber’s expansion into new cities means it’s running into more of these types.

The antagonist now is DC’s notoriously shady Taxi Commission. Its head, Ron Linton, made an offhanded claim during a public hearing today that Uber “is operating illegally,” adding that “we plan to take steps against them.”

Asked what he meant by local Gothamist publication DCist after the hearing ended, he replied ”We license public vehicles for hire under two arrangements. One is a time and metered distance, that’s a taxicab. The other is a fixed rate by appointment, and that’s a limo. [Uber doesn't] qualify under either circumstance.”

Uber tells me it hasn’t heard anything about this issue besides a tweet from someone at the hearing this morning (which was mostly about a bunch of other local taxi issues), and from news reports. But it said in a blog post today that “prior to launching we had conversations with representatives of the taxi commission that helped us understand the regulatory landscape and convinced us that the Uber transportation alternative was legal in the city of Washington, DC.”

Meanwhile, Linton told the Washington Post that he has “no record they ever approached our commission" about doing business in the city. "No one has ever reached out to me from Uber,” he said, “who are these guys kidding?"

Uber DC head Rachel Holt tells me that the company has spent the day trying to (re)connect with Linton: ”We’ve reached out but have not heard anything back today, but we’re hoping to so we can start a dialogue.”

Linton, whose office holds broad powers over transportation in the Congressionally-unrepresented District, had even more more choice words about Uber. ”There is no contract between this city and the Uber operation,” he explained to TBD, a local transportation blog that attended the hearing. “What they say is not true and they will be dealt with."

Let’s review this Catch-22 situation.

Uber had tried to get approval for a service that uses GPS and mobile technology to provide low-end luxury car transportation, something that no one else is doing. But the license for such a service doesn’t exist, because the commission only offers ones for taxis and limos. So the commission would have to create a new license in order to be able to offer it to Uber. But now, the guy who is in charge of things like licenses is promising to punish Uber because it doesn’t have a…

Oh wait, was Linton put in place by a mayor who gained office with the support of various special-interest taxi groups?

Why yes, yes he was.

[Image of Linton via the Carmen Group.]



Sony’s Music Unlimited Service To Land On iOS This Quarter

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 03:32 PM PST

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Apple users probably have more than enough media on their iDevices to keep them entertained on the go, but Sony Network Entertainment President Tim Schaaff thinks there’s room for another media service on iOS. According to VentureBeat, the company’s Music Unlimited streaming service will be hitting Apple’s mobile platform some time in Q1 2012.

In addition to simply streaming music from the Music Unlimited catalog, users will be able save cache their playlists for offline streaming at a later time. The service is already available on Android devices (not to mention several of Sony’s own products) so it’s more than a little surprising that it will soon make the iOS leap.

It’s especially puzzling because there is already no shortage of competitors in the streaming music space. As VentureBeat notes, rivals Spotify and Rdio have been on iOS for quite some time now, and already offer a similar feature set.

Really, it’s problem that all new entrants to this space have to deal with. As Eric Schmidt would probably say, it all comes down to differentiation. Rara, a relatively new streaming music service that launched this past December, is a great example. While they peg their service as being tuned for the non-tech savvy, their other main differentiator was that they launched simultaneously in multiple markets worldwide where some of the bigger services have yet to make a splash. While it’s still early to say if the approach is actually sustainable, I’ve got to give them credit for taking a different approach.

In this case, Sony’s appearance on iOS probably holds considerable appeal for people who have already invested heavily into the Sony media/hardware ecosystem, but it’s going to be a tough sell for anyone who doesn’t have some sort of pre-existing allegiance to the Japanese giant. I wish them the best — more competition is always good — but I look forward to seeing how many iOS users adopt it.



Facebook Comments Box Now On Mobile, And Over 400,000 Web Sites

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 03:07 PM PST

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Over 400,000 sites currently use Facebook’s Comments Box social plugin the company tells me, and as of today they all support an optimized mobile commenting experience. Now you can criticize your least favorite bloggers — I mean participate in intelligent discussion while on the go. Just 10 months after the launch of the revamped plugin, Facebook is starting to creep up on commenting solutions like Disqus which appears on 1.1 million sites.

Comments Box has been a big win for Facebook, giving it exposure, driving use of its Subscribe feature, and demonstrating how Facebook authenticated identity can make the internet a more civil place.

Now when Comments Box detects a mobile device user agent, it will automatically show the mobile version. The new soft update to the Comments Box doesn’t require any developer interaction to enable, it just works.

Some sites using the old version of the plugin already supported mobile commenting. However, the buttons and entry fields looked too small and sometimes were unresponsive. The new version is the right size and makes it easy to comment, Like, and toggle posting to Facebook. You can try it out at m.techcrunch.com/2012/01/11/facebook-mobile-comments/

Facebook’s comment widget first launched in 2009 but became a serious contender with its March 2011 relaunch. Since then Facebook has been playing catchup to commenting systems like Disqus and Livefyre, as well the distant frontrunner WordPress. It’s been iterating rapidly, and giving publishers more incentives to integrate the plugin.

The inclusion of links to subscribe to a commenter’s public Facebook updates draws in blogs. That’s because these links help grow the following a blog’s writers who frequently comment, who in turn publish the blog’s articles to their Facebook subscribes. The one-click ability to publish a comment to Facebook alongside a link to the article can boost referral traffic better than other solutions.

Along with the Like button, Comments Box is leading Facebook’s march across the web. If sites find the plugin reduces trolling and improves conversation by making commenters log in with their real identity, they may become more open to using other Facebook widgets. One day that could include an ad network plugin which could turn into an enormous revenue stream for Facebook.



On The Heels Of Hiring Skype’s Former Strategy Boss, Urban Airship Hits 10 Billion Notifications Pushed

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 12:03 PM PST

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Urban Airship has been working pretty hard of late to plant itself firmly on the “Startups to Watch” list. The Portland and San Francisco-based startup, a platform provider that gives developers a simple way to build in-app purchases and push notifications into their mobile apps, grabbed some media attention when it acquired SimpleGeo back in October for $3 million. As SimpleGeo provided location-based services and data to mobile developers, the acquisition made a lot of sense for Urban Airship, providing a complement to its push notifications focus; and given the early hype around SimpleGeo, it was a bargain. (Plus, there was the added benefit of getting the founders as advisors.)

Less than a month later, the startup followed that by announcing it had raised $15 million series C from Verizon, Salesforce.com, True Ventures, Foundry Group, and others.

At the same time, Intel announced its AppUp Fund — a $100 million fund designed to invest in startups and enterprises developing apps and software tools for mobile devices and PCs — and Urban Airship (along with 4tiitoo) was one of the first startups chosen to receive funding from Intel’s AppUp. Intel participated in Urban Airship’s series C round, whereupon it capped the deal off by signing a business collaboration agreement with Intel Software and Services Group on top of the investment.

Then Urban Airship discovered (by happy accident) that its push notifications worked on Amazon's new Kindle Fire out of the box without having to further customize its code. I mean it almost starts to sound ridiculous, unless you want to say that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Furthermore, last week, Christopher Dean joined Urban Airship from Skype, where he was formerly Chief Strategy Officer, and held a number of other positions, including leading Skype’s global business development. Dean became Urban Airship’s Chief Revenue Officer, and followed the startup’s recent hiring of the Second Porch Founder as CMO. The former Skype CSO has more than two decades worth of experience with early-stage companies and helping them connect with strategic partners, finding ways to grow revenue, as well as locating new distribution channels — all areas of priority for Urban Airship — which makes this a great pick up.

As if this doesn’t already sound like a series of high fives, today Urban Airship hit an impressive milestone for a young startup, as it has now served over 10 billion push notifications since launching two years ago. Just last August, the company announced its 5 billionth push, which shows how quickly Urban Airship (and push notifications) are scaling. That’s one billion pushes a month. Obviously, this is only going to continue as mobile operating systems retool their interfaces to better organize and serve notifications (like iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S), and as more and more developers integrate smart notifications into their apps, etc etc.

It may sound like hot air, but this really does seem to be a testament to how quickly push notifications have become a vital part of marketing for app developers — and when it comes to this space, and helping those developers do push better, Urban Airship is definitely a part of the conversation. As for a broader industry perspective, Forrester Research recently released a report called "The New Messaging Mandate", recommending best practices for mobile marketers looking to get a better handle on integrated messaging and communications via mobile. Interestingly, for the first time (by an independent, third-party firm), push notifications was given recognition, as Forrester said that push notifications now can actually deliver on the promise of integrated messaging — with improved efficiency, scale, and reliability. (Urban Airship was also mentioned therein.)

In practice, as the startup works with several teams in the NHL to automate notifications through their mobile apps, pushing messages to the teams’ fans based on geolocation, season ticket holder status, favorite team and players, and live game action, you can see where the appeal is looking forward. For marketing, mobile messaging is going to play a big part in the next phase, and push notifications are going to be right there along for the ride. Urban Airship and those like it only stand to benefit.



Appifier Launches New Service That Turns WordPress Sites Into Mobile Apps

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 10:21 AM PST

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Appifier is a new service, previously in beta, that turns WordPress sites into mobile apps. That’s not mobile websites, mind you, but actual mobile applications complete with push notifications, offline access, Twitter and Facebook sharing, plus a native look, feel and speed.

Unlike many DIY app creators (and there are many), Appifier isn’t doing a freemium offering. You can test out your app for free, but if you want to publish it in the app store, there are fees involved.

For non-coders/developers, the fees are reasonable. You can pay-as-you-go for $39.99 per month or you can bite the bullet and pay the “lifetime” fee of $499.99. The plans include same day iTunes App Store submission, unlimited push notifications, social media sharing features, custom design and branding, and analytics.

Says Co-founder Mike Gozzo (from his home office in Montreal), he and fellow Co-founder Steve Panetta, think they have something unique because other WordPress app builders don’t help you get into the app store and/or don’t create native apps. Think WPTouch, for example – the hugely popular WordPress plugin for turning a WordPress site into a mobile site. Or Weever Apps, another well-known option. But, says Gozzo, designers aren’t able to resell these creations as mobile apps. So the goal is to create a service they – or anyone – could use to build something a bit more elegant and packaged.

While it’s true that Appifier may stand out among the WordPress-to-app builder crowd, it isn’t just competing with them  -  it’s competing with all mobile app builders. And there are a lot of them out there. I mean, a lot. A year ago, I started making a spreadsheet (Google Docs link – and no you cannot edit it) to track all the services I could find, but had to stop around 55. That’s a crowded market. But the mobile app ecosystem is incredibly large, too, and growing still.

Appifier is at least focusing on a very popular vertical: WordPress and non-developers. In addition, the app-building process is short: 60 seconds the company claims. (See the video below).

Although there aren’t apps in the iTunes App Store yet (the service is launching today), there are a few in the Appifier Sandbox I could test. This is where potential customers will try-before-they-buy, too. Apps run a little slower in the Sandbox than they would natively, but you get the idea.

The apps are simple, with buttons for posts, categories and search, but they’re a heck of a lot prettier than WPTouch websites thanks to support for images, themes and other customizations. (It supports ads, too, if you must). Appifier will upgrade these customization options soon, in order to give designers even more control over the UI (user interface). All existing users will be upgraded for free.

And because the apps are native, the plan is to add support for more native features in the next update – like geolocation and text-to-speech, for example.

If you want to check out Appifier for yourself, you can test it out for free from here.



Eric Schmidt: Android Is Differentiated, Not Fragmented

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 09:31 AM PST

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We’ve spent the better part of yesterday cruising around the Central Hall on a quest to highlight the coolest tech at CES, but Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt was on hand at CNET’s Next Big Thing panel to talk about the future of consumer electronics. While doing so, he (perhaps unsurprisingly) made it clear that he isn’t a fan of the word “fragmentation” when it comes to Google’s Android OS.

“You have to be careful with that word,” he cautioned. He actually prefers to use the term “differentiation” to describe the situation, as his definition of fragmentation is when certain apps are able to run on one particular flavor of Android and not other. “What people really care about is if there's an interoperable ecosystem of apps.”

In Schmidt’s eyes, differentiation is a means for Android-using partners to woo customers with their own take on a common platform. As long as every Android customer is able to use the same apps, he doesn’t see much of a problem.

“Differentiation means that you have a choice and the people who are making the phones, they’re going to compete on their view of innovation, and they’re going to try and convince you that theirs is better than somebody else,” Schmidt said.

A quick look at the breakdown of Android versions currently in use shows that certain versions have settled into common use, but the sheer number of manufacturers working with Android means that the timing for new software updates can be dramatically different from company to company.

The highly customized nature of some manufacturer-specific Android builds also means that device-specific maintenance and support updates can take extra time to implement, which leads to an Android landscape where some companies pull ahead and others lag when it comes to customer experience. Is that necessarily fair to every customer? Not really, but it seems we’ll all just have to deal with it for the foreseeable future.

Correction: Updated to reflect that Schmidt’s comments were made at CNET’s Next Big Thing panel.



Shazam Launches New App Focused On Lyric Play: Shazam Player

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 08:51 AM PST

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iTunes is great and everything, but it’s still just a standard music player. The most exciting feature of the whole program is Genius, at least in my opinion, and even that can be off from time to time. But Shazam wants you to ingest your music a bit differently from here on out, and has launched the Shazam Player app to give users a better chance to leverage its new feature, Lyric Play.

Lyric Play is already available in the premium version of Shazam, Shazam Encore, and allows users to see lyrics playing in time with the music, as the song is being discovered. This technology is clearly nothing short of impressive, but the 20 seconds spent tagging a song isn’t really the ideal platform for this feature to be shown off.

That said, the Shazam Player app lets you get your Lyric Play on throughout the entirety of songs. However, there will be a small fee. The app itself is free, but unlimited Lyric Play functionality requires either a monthly ($.99) or yearly ($5.99) subscription. But there are plenty of other features worth trying out, even if Lyric Play isn’t your thing.

For one, most of the same core functionality found in the Shazam apps is still available here, save for Shazaming of course. Users will be able to share their music via Facebook and Twitter, check out the Vevo music video on YouTube, and have access to touring information for the artists of their choice.

Once the app is downloaded, music from within the user’s iTunes library is automatically indexed within the app, at which point the user can filter by artist, album, or track. All your iTunes playlists will make the migration, too. Users can also limit selection down to only those songs with Lyric Play support (Shazam doesn’t have every song covered just yet).

The Shazam Player app gives users the option to build playlists on the go, along with some cool good/bad buttons for an existing queue. Let’s say you’re listening to Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits, but realize that the song Man In The Mirror makes you way too emotional. You need a break from that song. Shazam Player lets you add it to the “Bad List” with one tap of a button, and it’ll stop playing in any of your queues until you bring it back over to the good side. In the same way, Shazam Player lets you mark songs for the good list, which will then get more plays.



Social Entertainment Network GetGlue Raises $12 Million In New Financing

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 08:32 AM PST

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Social entertainment network GetGlue has just raised a significant round of $12 million in new financing, led by new investor Rho Ventures. The company’s existing investors, TimeWarner, RRE Ventures and Union Square Ventures, also participated in this round. The company had previously raised $6 million in November 2010.

The NYC-based company, which launched way back in 2008, has gone through many iterations since then. It now focuses on allowing users to share their activities, like watching a TV show, reading a book, seeing a movie and more, and then comment, reply or vote on comments from others who are doing the same thing.

The service is available online (desktop and mobile) as well as on mobile apps for iOS and Android. Over 30 major media companies now use GetGlue (via its API) to integrate the network’s user activity into their own websites and apps. These include Fox, NBC, Showtime, HBO and DirectTV, which offers a “first screen” experience that allows you to check-in to the program you’re viewing using your remote control.

In addition, over 75 major television networks work with GetGlue to reward fans of their 680 popular shows with stickers and discounts. The group, which includes major networks like ABC, CW, FOX, NBC, A&E, ABC Family, AMC, BRAVO, CNN, Discovery, Food Network, FX, HBO, MTV, Showtime, TNT, and USA, also uses GetGlue’s backend monitoring and analytics offerings to track engagement levels among their shows’ fans.

Over the past year, GetGlue has seen incredible growth. At the beginning of the year, the network had 750,000 users. It now has 2 million. Check-ins grew 1000% over 2011 and crossed the 100 million mark by year-end. And GetGlue’s database of check-ins, ratings and comments has over 350 million entries.

Some of GetGlue’s most recent efforts have been behind the scenes. For example, in September, the company introduced a curation feature that uses homegrown NLP (natural language processing) algorithms to automatically filter and hide comments on TV shows to reduce the “noise.” This includes automatically hiding profane speech and other short-form comments. After implementing the change, GetGlue saw engagement levels climb by 50%. Now, every three or four comments will include a vote or reply.

Although GetGlue offers you the ability to check in to a number of activities – and that’s not going away anytime soon – the main focus is on the social TV experience, an increasingly hot focus these days. Says CEO Alex Iskold, TV is clearly the biggest area of interest for the service’s users, followed by sports, movies and then all the rest.

The additional funding will be used mainly for product development, says Iskold, as the plan is to keep the company’s 40-person team as small as possible.

The company is also planning to launch updated apps, for iPad, Android tablets and possibly the Kindle Fire in the new year.



Personal Search Service CloudMagic Arrives On Mobile For Fast Gmail, Docs & Twitter Search

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:39 AM PST

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CloudMagic, the personal search service that indexes your Gmail, documents, contacts, calendar and Twitter updates, is now available as a mobile app. The release follows a major update for the service this past fall, which added the ability to search Twitter and a move to host your personal index in the cloud.

This switch is what enables CloudMagic to work across multiple devices, including now, iPhone and Android smartphones. Using the new mobile app, CloudMagic is surprisingly fast – and far more useful than the phones’ built-in search functions alone.

We first looked at CloudMagic back in summer 2010 when the startup made its debut as a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that indexed your Gmail and Google Apps. The extension is still around, if you want it, but is not required for the service to work. Instead, you can simply connect your accounts (Gmail, Google Docs, Google’s Contacts and Calendar, and Twitter) using OAuth. If you choose to use the extension, however, you’ll also have access to a CloudMagic search box you can access within Gmail or Twitter.

Using the search box is fast, and helpful in the way it aggregates and organizes the data. I like using the extension in Gmail better – in Twitter, it feels a little more in the way due to its placement. And while Gmail’s search is already very good, CloudMagic is helpful in that you can remain in your inbox, or even with an email open, in order to search. (Gmail’s search makes you navigate away from what you’re doing to a standalone search page to see your results.)

But even though Gmail’s native search is OK on the desktop, on phones, that’s another matter. Email search there is far more broken.

Email search on the iPhone, for example, only lets you search by “From,” “To,” “Subject” and “All.” CloudMagic, on the other hand, allows you to search for names, a company name, a phrase you remember from a tweet or anything else. It also supports the use of the advanced search operators listed here.

So now, for example, you can search for “filename:pdf” on your mobile to find all emails that have a PDF attached. Handy.

The app is also really, really, really, fast. It felt more like using the iPhone’s Spotlight Search feature than some cloud-hosted thing. (Hopefully that will remain the case after everyone signs up all at once!)

CloudMagic, which competes with Greplin, still needs to integrate more services to be competitive. Greplin already includes Twitter, and it offers Facebook, Tumblr, Dropbox, LinkedIn, and Google Reader, too. But it’s still good to see some competition in the desperately under-served, on-device mobile search market. Yes, that’s a thing. A thing we need!

You can grab the updated CloudMagic iPhone and Android apps from their respective app stores if you want to give it a go.

The service comes from the same folks who brought you IssueBurner, the combo task management/helpdesk solution for small teams.



Ngmoco Partners With Glu Mobile To Bring Gun Bros To Mobage

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST

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Following its November partnership with TinyCo, social games outfit ngmoco (now a DeNA-owned company) is partnering with game publisher Glu Mobile, Inc. The deal will brings Glu’s popular Gun Bros game to ngmoco’s Mobage gaming platform for Android.

No word yet on whether the rest of Glu’s titles – many of which are more well-known than Gun Bros – will port over as well.

Mobage arrived in an English version post-DeNA's December acquisition of ngmoco for $400 million. The social gaming platform now serves over 35 million users with more than 1,800 game titles for smartphones, feature phones and PC's. DeNA is now working to expand Mobage globally by building up a presence in the U.S., European and Asian markets.

With Gun Bros now in tow, Mobage now includes the following titles:

  • Paper Toss, Ragdoll Blaster (Backflip Studios)
  • Ant Smasher, Bunny Shooter (Best, Cool and Fun Games)
  • Pocket God (Bolt Creative)
  • Nightclub City (Booyah)
  • Touch Hockey (Flipside5)
  • Paradise Island (Game Insight)
  • iBlast Moki 2 , Stardunk (Godzilab)
  • Fragger 2 (Harold Brenes)
  • Haypi Kingdom (HaypiCo)
  • Texas Poker (KAMAGames)
  • Backyard Monsters (Kixeye)
  • Solitaire (MobilityWare)
  • Maple Story (Nexon)
  • We Rule, Mobage Blackjack , VIP(ngmoco)
  • Pocket Frogs, Tiny Tower (Nimblebit)
  • Checkers (Optime)
  • Putt Putt Penguin (OMGPOP)
  • Zombie Farm (The Playforge)
  • Zoo Land, City Land (RockYou)
  • Cupcake Maker (Sunstorm Interactive)
  • My Monster Rancher (Tecmo/Koei)
  • Tiny Chef, Tiny Nightclub (TinyCo)


Mobile Media Platform Cinemacraft Extends Series A Round With Investment From 500 Startups

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 05:35 AM PST

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Tokyo- and Singapore-based mobile media platform Cinemacraft announced it has extended its Series A round by securing an investment from Dave McClure‘s 500 Startups. The fresh money from the US brings the total amount raised by the company so far to US$900,000.

Previous investors include Singapore-based Jungle Ventures (background), Jayesh Pareikh (founder of Sony Entertainment TV), Jai Maroo (Shemaroo Entertinament), Takuro Wakayabashi (Xseed Partners), and Devesh Chetty (RGM Media). Cinemecraft founder and CEO Sandeep Casi says the investment will be used to create an interactive video ad network in Japan, US, India, and Indonesia, along with ad-supported consumer video apps.

For Cinemacraft, this is just a first step: the company is currently building an interactive mobile broadcast network that will make it much easier to distribute video and other content to mobile devices, including feature phones in emerging markets. To be more concrete, the cloud-based platform makes it possible to stream rich media over 2.5G (30 kbps to 60 kpbs), 3G (100 kbps to 250 kbps), 4G (over 300 kbps), and Wi-Fi/broadband (400 kbps to 1000 kpbs).

In other words, Cinemacraft wants to enable even owners of low-end phones in mobile markets with weak bandwith and latency issues to consume content such as movies, TV programs, music, games, comics, or interactive video ads on their handsets. (Again, smartphones like the iPhone or iPad, Android, Windows Phones, or Blackberry are supported, too.) The ultimate goal is a unified interactive media platform that overcomes the fragmentation problem observed in the mobile world today.

Cinemacraft is looking at a big market: according to Cisco, worldwide mobile video traffic in 2011 has exceeded 50% for the first time and is projected to hit 66% in 2015. The startup is currently building out its entire media broadcast platform, i.e. the compression technology, the video streaming technology, and the media players (see below for an overview).

You can learn more about Cinemacraft’s background and history here.