Internet TV technology startup Vidgyor raises Rs 3.1 crore from VC AngelPrime

AngelPrime, a Bangalore-based venture capital fund based in Bangalore, today announced an investment of USD 500,000 in Vidgyor - a targeted video advertisement platform for Internet TV. The Bangalore-based start-up enables broadcasters to monetize live TV streaming on the Internet by replacing standard TV advertisements with personalized video ads. The funding will help Vidgyor to expand their target user base, increase marketing efforts and further develop their technology.

Bala Parthasarathy, Managing Partner, AngelPrime, said, "Personalised advertising for live TV over Internet has largely been an untapped market in the country. Broadcasters, so far, have been unable to monetize live streaming through Internet and Vidgyor aims to help them address this effectively. We see a huge potential for start-ups such as Vidgyor in the ad-tech solution space. We are excited to partner with them and support them in their growth.”

Internet TV is gaining popularity in India with many viewers watching live news and TV. The proliferation of mobile devices, availability of low–cost Internet and changing lifestyles has fueled the growth of Internet TV in India. The Indian diaspora is also a huge market for the broadcasters with people wanting to stay connected with their country and its TV channels.

Said Mahaboob Khan, Co-Founder, Vidgyor, "We are very happy to partner with AngelPrime and are sure this partnership will boost our growth. The AngelPrime team is known for its expertise in mentoring seed –stage startups and we hope to benefit from their collective experience. We have already signed up with leading broadcasters and aim to achieve a positive growth in the near future.”

Currently, Internet TV features the same ads, which run on broadcast TV. Video publishers are unable to monetize live TV streams delivered over Internet, as the advertiser has not paid for showing them online. On the other hand, advertisers are unable to reach out to the online audience who prefer watching TV over Internet through a mobile device.

“Vidgyor’s innovative solution has enabled IndiaTV to generate revenue from our Live TV streams. We are exploring synergies to use the solution with our global content distributors,” said Anushrav Gulati, VP – Digital , IndiaTV.

Vidgyor started a year back with the vision of enabling broadcasters and content distributors monetize live TV streams delivered over internet by auto-detecting original broadcast TV ads and replacing them with different set of targeted mid-roll ads. The organization has developed a technology platform that can effectively provide incremental revenue through deployment of mid rolls. The solution integrates with no disruption to the current digital workflow and works with any Internet connected devices - be it Desktop, Mobile, Tablets IP Set-Top Boxes etc. It also seamlessly works with any CDN, Video Player, or Encoder.

Vidgyor enables personalized ad targeting and provides high quality user experience to the end user. Advertisers also benefit more from this model, as they will now be able to reach out to the right audience and user base. The Vidgyor platform can integrate with any VAST compliant video ad network and also provides a dashboard to track revenue and manage campaigns in real-time. Vidgyor claims that its solution can help increase video publisher's inventory by 5X to 10X on Live TV feeds across devices thereby increasing scope for monetization.