JW Player provides a video software and data insights platform that powers digital video for hundreds of thousands of businesses and broadcasters across EMEA, APAC and Latin America. The company reports that each month 1 billion viewers consume video on its technology across 2.7 billion devices. Led by CEO and co-founder Dave Otten, JW Player recently acquired Vualto, a provider of live and on-demand streaming and DRM solutions. The company intends to use the new funding to accelerate product innovation, expand its global go-to-market presence across sales, marketing and channel partnerships, and continue to grow and invest in its team. JW Player has offices in New York City, London and Eindhoven. JW Player builds the JW Player video player and a video platform sold as software-as-a-service to publishers. The company says it is shifting from a pure technology provider to an audience and monetization partner and business growth partner for publishers. Over the past year it added more than 4,500 SaaS customers, doubled revenue, and now reaches more than 1 billion unique viewers in a single month. JW Player is expanding beyond the basic player into data-driven products, including a video recommendation engine currently being tested by about 100 publishers, and it helps publishers connect videos to existing ad networks. It has launched a software development kit for Android apps and plans to add support for apps on Internet-connected TVs. The company plans global growth with new offices in Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region while remaining concentrated in New York. JW Player develops a video player used by publishers and brands and offers paid services like ad serving and data products. Its player is deployed on about 2 million sites and its videos are watched by more than 900 million people each month. Customers named in the article include TripAdvisor, IMDB, The Guardian, and EA. The core player is free, while the company charges for additional services such as running ads. JW Player began as an open-source project in 2005 and the company around it dates to 2008; it rebranded from LongTail Video the prior fall. Leadership said the company will roll out more data-driven products early next year to enable smarter content recommendations and better monetization for publishers, advertisers, and consumers. LongTail Video offers affordable, self-serve video solutions for web publishers, led by its flagship JW Player. Its product suite includes the JW Player and hosted services such as ad delivery (AdSolution), video management, transcoding, streaming, and hosting; it also offers Bits on the Run, an online video platform. The JW Player is active on over two million sites and the company delivers over three billion video streams each month, while AdSolution and Bits on the Run together serve over 15,000 customers. LongTail’s customers range from Fortune 500 companies to design agencies, individual developers, and bloggers. The company has been profitable since 2010. It plans to use new funding to accelerate product development and expand sales and marketing efforts.

Total raised

$145M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series E

Latest activity

Jun 2021