AirPlay, the company that is merging mobile gaming and live television, announced today that it has secured $14 million in a Series B investment round from a combination of strategic investors and venture funds. Telecom industry stalwarts QUALCOMM and Motorola, and premier venture funds JK&B Capital, ONSET Ventures and Redpoint Ventures, all participated in the financing led by JK&B. Concurrent with the funding, Ali Shadman a general partner at JK&B Capital joined the Board of Directors of AirPlay.
“In approaching this round, we sought best of breed partners from the wireless and venture worlds,” said Morgan Guenther, Chairman and CEO of AirPlay. “The funding now provides us with the financial and strategic muscle required to execute on this massive new market opportunity.”
In March of this year, AirPlay announced its intention to transform television viewing from a passive activity to an immersive experience by allowing viewers to play along with their favorite live television programs from their mobile phones. In August, AirPlay delivered Emmys AirPlay Live from Sprint, which allowed viewers to predict winners and losers, view commentary and answer trivia questions during the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy® Awards on August 27. AirPlay’s flagship sports game, AirPlay Live Football, was unveiled to consumers in September. The highly-anticipated game enables football fans to make real-time game predictions from their phones during live broadcasts of this season’s professional football games — allowing the armchair quarterback to finally call the game.
“AirPlay has a completely unique and transformative offering that stands to change the way we experience traditional television,” said Ali Shadman of JK&B Capital. “We believe the possibilities are endless for growing their service across many different types of content programming and live events.”
“Motorola’s decision to invest in AirPlay was driven by their compelling mobile service offering,” said Warren Holtsberg, corporate vice president, equity investments, Motorola, Inc. “We are excited about their solution and its ability to seamlessly enable interactive TV gaming via mobile devices and across social networks.”
In the coming year, AirPlay intends to deliver an entire platform of AirPlayTV events that will include game and award shows, sports and reality TV programming and other categories of real time televised entertainment. Content creators, networks and advertisers can easily integrate their programming into this platform and instantly create a more engaging experience for viewers.
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