Mobile TV firm MobiTV, which raised a big $70 million in third round earlier this year in July, has added another $30 million to that round, topping it off at $100 million. Interesting is the new investors behind the extra money: Hearst Corp. and Adobe Systems. Hearst has been investing left and right in digital media related companies through its venture arm…Adobe is more strategic, and would possibly mean we’ll see mobile Flash/Flash lite and other being used by MobiTV’s apps. In previous rounds, the company raised $21.5 million.
MobiTV will use the money to invest in WiMax and other technological breakthroughs and simply to meet pent up demand for the company’s existing services, the company said…but that’s what it said in the earlier funding as well. It says it has more than a million subscribers (and that was also a long time ago…they need to update the numbers), and has expanded across Europe and into Asia as well. In terms of product line, it has gone into mobile radio recently.
On an industry level, something else needs to happen for mobile TV to take off beyond its growth right now…MediaFLO or DVB-H services need to start. And soon. Throwing around buzzwords like Wi-Max look good in theory, but any large scale roll out across the country is far away. Combination 3G and Wi-Fi handsets are clunky for now, and access of Wi-Fi is still an issue, despite what people will have you believe. Until then, I’m going bearish…
Related: MobiTV Receives A Whopping $70 Million Third Round; Expansion Capital, DVB-H Launch?