Joost, the online television service that promises ad-supported high-quality streaming of licensed TV content, has signed a $45 million deal with Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, CBS Corp., Viacom and Li Ka Shing Foundation to "to accelerate product development, global expansion, localization and service offerings."
"This funding represents a tremendous vote of confidence in Joost's platform. We've carefully selected these investors from a variety of interested parties, as they are best-in-class in their respective arenas and bring unique assets to Joost that will enable us to significantly accelerate growth and development of the Company", Friis said.
Joost, unlike Google's YouTube aims to popularize long-form, high-quality, ad-supported movies and TV shows by obtaining permission to all the videos it will host; hence, the importance of signing with major content providers like CBS, Warner Music, National Geographic, Turner Broadcasting, The Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and CNN, the NHL, Sports Illustrated, Sony Pictures Television and Viacom - who recently sued YouTube for alleged copyright infringement.
Still at an invitation-only beta phase, Joost is currently working out mass communication delivery logistics. I've tried Joost before and found the beta a little buggy and the content far from great, but it is fair to say that Joost is still at an early stage and already scored some good deals. As broadband connections popularity continues to grow and Joost keeps on attracting content providers, we could see an interesting future for online video viewing.