Monday, January 5, 2009

RipCode Raises $12.5 Million for Mobile Transcoding

RipCode, a start-up based in Dallas, Texas, raised $12.5 million in new venture financing for its video delivery technology for mobiles.


RipCode's On-Demand and Real-Time Stream Transcoding appliances are designed to optimize end-user viewing experience while reducing operational cost and complexity for content providers and network operators. Unlike many of the encoding solutions available in the market today that are powered by general purpose processors, the RipCode transcoding appliance is built around arrays of DSP-based processors. It is designed to process multiple, concurrent transcode paths, which significantly accelerates the entire transcode process. The company claims its consolidated, high concurrency processing enables its appliance to replace between 10 - 20 existing general process servers.


Granite Ventures led the round alongside existing investors Hunt Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, Vesbridge Partners, and ATA Ventures. Additionally, Eric Zimits, managing director of Granite Ventures, joins RipCode's board of directors.
http://www.ripcode.com

  • Last month, RipCode and MySpace announced the launch of a global mobile video initiative with MySpace Mobile, which relies on RipCode's on-demand video transcoding to let MySpace Mobile users view MySpace video content from many of the most popular video-enabled mobile devices. Because MySpace uses RipCode's technology to transcode video on demand, the premier lifestyle portal eliminates the need to store the extensive MySpace video library in multiple mobile formats, which saves significant hardware, energy and storage resources. The company also recently announced the availability of on-demand video transcoding for the most popular video-enabled phones, including the Apple iPhone, T-Mobile G1, RIM Blackberry Bold and Blackberry Storm.


  • RipCode is headed by Brendan Mills, who previously served as founder, CEO and president of GENBAND. Mills has also held positions at Cisco Systems and was the director of product marketing for NetSpeed, Inc, a developer of DSL broadband technology acquired by Cisco Systems in 1998.