JW Player closes $20MN in Series D funding


Details

Michelle Clancy

| 06 January 2016




Digital video firm JW Player has completed a $20 million Series D financing round.



The company will use the investment to accelerate the introduction of software-as-a-service products for the video industry, and for international sales and marketing expansion.

The funding was led by its existing investors, which include Greycroft Growth, Greenspring Associates, Cueball Capital, and e.ventures.

“With millions of customers, JW Player is among the most recognised names in digital video,” said Ian Sigalow, partner and co-founder at Greycroft. “The company has consistently demonstrated an ability to stay a step ahead of the market, a difficult feat in such a rapidly-changing marketplace. We see an enormous opportunity ahead of us in both our core SaaS business as well as in future media offerings, and are very excited to deepen our partnership with the company through this investment.”

The Series D financing caps off a year that saw the company add 4,500 new SaaS customers. It surpassed one billion unique viewers and 750 million hours of video, or the equivalent of 85,000 years, consumed on JW Player technology in a single month.

It also introduced the JW7 (which it said improves playback performance by 30%), JW iOS and Android SDKs, and data-driven recommendations. And, it hired Brent Wood as its new chief technical officer.

“For JW Player, 2015 was a banner year as we successfully doubled our SaaS revenue, released several innovative products to market and expanded the depth and quality of our team," said Dave Otten, CEOO and co-founder, JW Player. "As a result of these efforts, well over one billion people now consume video on a JW Player each month, which is a huge milestone. With this new round of financing, we are poised to build on this momentum for years to come and continue our drive towards creating our Independent Video Ecosystem.”