Digital Video Consolida...

A double-whammy in the digital video space today: Avail-TVN , a video services provider that works with companies like NBC, Univision, and brands like Mattel, has announced that it has picked up $100 million in financing led by the Carlyle Group , and it is using those funds to make an acquisition outside of the U.S., buying rival video service provider On Demand Group in the UK from its existing owner, SeaChange International, for $27 million. Avail-TVN says that the deal will make it the largest provider of digital video services in the world. The move is a sign of how the digital TV industry is already fairly large in its geographical reach, but in many cases is still only providing incremental revenue on top of more traditional TV revenue streams — and so companies that work in this space, which can be capital intensive, are best suited to bulk up their scale to survive. Carlyle is leading the round that also includes existing investors Columbia Capital, Valhalla Partners, Novak Biddle and Pioneer Ventures. With the round of financing Carlyle, which already has an extensive amount of holdings in the media industry , becomes Avail-TVN’s largest investor. Avail-TVN will also use the funds for product development and for wider international expansion targeting content providers and multichannel video service providers. Avail-TVN already had a customer base extending outside of its U.S. headquarters, but this deal will extend that even further: it will now have customers in 25 countries covering 70 million households. Regions covered will be North America, Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. “Our strategy has been to invest in leading players across the digital media ecosystem and incorporate them into one company to build Avail-TVN into the largest provider of advanced digital video services worldwide,” said Ramu Potarazu, Avail-TVN’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “The Carlyle Group’s investment supports that vision, and provides the capital and global network to build upon this foundation both domestically and internationally.” Avail-TVN already works with provides to provide enhanced interactive digital TV services: for example, it is powering the multi-platform video coverage that NBC will run during the London 2012 Olympics this summer. Adding ODG to the mix will bump up the kinds of services it can offer to customers: ODG helps broadcasters with a range of things from content acquisition and strategic consulting services, through to powering video-on-demand services for mobile, online and digital TV services. Its customers include Virgin Media in the UK, Disney, Cablevision and others. Its existing CEO, Tony Kelly, will stay on and become a part of the bigger executive management team, and will now report to Avail-TVN’s CEO, Ramu Potarazu. There is also some debt funding involved in this deal from  Silicon Valley Bank, RBS Citizens, N.A. and Bank of America, N.A.

KurbKarma: A Social Net...

We have all been there: you are in your car, you need to park, and you cannot, no matter how much you try, find a space. You see cars pulling away, but it’s too far for you to get there before another car swoops in. You see people walking and you trail them, hoping they’re heading to a vehicle. It’s a frustrating state of affairs, but a new startup, KurbKarma , is launching today at TC Disrupt New York to try to solve it. “Parking where and when you need it” is the basic idea here: you have people who have spaces they are about to leave; and you have people who need spaces. The app ( available for iOS ) works like an ad hoc social network to link these people up. Those who have a space can post their status on an app, those who need a space find one on the map. The app integrates with Google Maps to plot spaces near you, and lets you send messages — several sendable with the touch of a button — to let the space owners know how far away you are. Spaces are “sold” with KarmaKredits: people who donate their spot pick up one KarmaKredit. People who need a space use two KarmaKredits to buy them. Like many of the best ideas out there, KurbKarma came out of the immediate needs of its founders. Neha Sampat and Matthew Baier are friends with longstanding backgrounds in tech, who are both also qualified as sommeliers, and they had a plan to get together to scheme for their next enological activity. Arranging to meet in the North Beach district of San Francisco, they drove around, looking for a place to park — which can be an impossible task in that part of town. By the time finally found a place to park, they knew what they had to do next: try to solve this problem for themselves and others. What’s interesting about the app is that it has both a practical  and  a moral twist to it. “There’s an element of paying it forward,” says Baier. “It’s a community effort to make parking easier; you are adding additional parking spaces to the public domain.” He also points out that the app helps aid the “peace of mind” of the driver, allowing them to focus on driving rather than looking off the road for a spot. But it’s not all about charity and goodwill: KurbKarma has also started to work a revenue model into the business, in the form of a virtual currency. You can always use the app free of charge, but if you have not had the chance to pick up KarmaKredits by offering spaces to the network, you can buy some through the App Store, with each credit costing $0.99. The app is free in the app store, and every new user gets 10 free KarmaKredits for signing up. The pair have been picking up a mailing list of users for launch with a bit of viral marketing that has clearly struck a chord in the traffic-choked streets of San Francisco: they went around a few areas of town — including the financial district and Dolores Park — and put what looked like parking tickets under the wipers of various cars. Then they stepped back to watch: people would pick them up, thinking “Oh no, not another parking ticket,” said co-founder Matthew Baier. Inside: a note about how annoying parking can be with a link to a fun domain offering a solution for how to improve it. (example: parkingisabitch.com ) They’ve collected 2,500 names this way so far. In the future, there are some exciting developments planned for KurbKarma. They include an Android version to complement the iOS app coming out today. And there are also discussions with other device makers (eg GPS system producers) to integrate with some of the other tools that drivers already use to get around. (The reason that the pair went with iOS first, says Sampat, is because they are launching in New York and San Francisco — both cities where people use their smartphones for navigation; in the future, when the company expands to other markets, especially in regions like Europe, where GPS in-car navigation systems are very popular, other hardware will need to come into play.) Baier also says that KurbKarma is working on expanding the kinds of spaces that they will integrate into the app: right now it’s geared at public parking, but down the line there will also be options to take private parking, in the form of garages, driveways and other off-street spaces. And, crucially for the business’ scale, it is talking with some large third parties that already focus on car-based city travel to help market the offering. I have to admit when I first heard the idea for KurbKarma, I had my doubts: it puts too much weight on the goodwill of other people, and being able to plan and stick to commitments with total strangers — and there are so many variables: traffic that can delay you; people needing to rush away and leave the space before they said they would; and people changing their mind and staying longer than originally intended. There are some elements already worked into the app that should help discourage flaky behavior, such as user ratings after a transaction is completed (or not, as the case may be): “It will happen from time to time that people leave,” notes Sampat. “But if they do that they will see negative ratings. The ratings will weed out those who do not follow the rules.” And sometimes it is the most unlikely — and original — of ideas that really take off. Just think of Airbnb and the idea of people who had never thought of themselves as ad hoc hoteliers suddenly giving up rooms in their private homes: that, too, sounded like a big leap for people to take. And yet today I think it’s miles better than most of the hotel options many cities offer. “Sharing models are becoming more mainstream,” says Baier. “The idea is already out there.” I’d put a few KarmaKredits on KurbKarma striking a similar chord.

Google Missed The Boat ...

Google got the chance to buy Twitter, but the search giant passed, says Michael Arrington. “Google hasn’t been interested in buying Twitter since they committed themselves to Google+” says Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures founder and former Twitter board member, in his fireside chat this morning with Arrington at the  TechCrunch Disrupt New York conference . Now Google+ is widely seen as a ghost town, and not buying Twitter could be a mistake that haunts Mountain View for years to come. Wilson has one of the most envied portfolios in venture capital , with Union Square Ventures getting in early on Twitter, Zynga, Etsy, and Tumblr. But the future might not be as bright. “I don’t think I’m going to be very good at investing in the next big thing. I don’t come from it. I didn’t work in it. The next thing isn’t going to be evolutionary. It’s going to be something completely different.” Arrington poked Wilson about writing “Silicon Valley could become the next Detroit” in a recent AVC blog post . Wilson explains “I didn’t mean to say [that]. Silicon Valley is the center of the digital revolution. But if there’s another revolution, [like] the teleportation revolution, and teleportation is invented in Mumbai, Silicon Valley might not be the locus of the next big thing.” Google Lost The Flock On the war for the future of social, Arrington asked “Do you think Facebook is overvalued?” Despite the newly public company’s share price dropping over 10% from its Friday close price, Wilson defend Mark Zuckerberg’s creation. “Markets come and go, good companies survive. The price of Facebook stock is not that important. Mark built an incredible platform and organization. I don’t think it matters that much if it’s trading at $25 or $50.” But Arrington pressed “is it going to be a half-trillion dollar company?” Wilson admitted “They’re going to have to grow into that.” Google had a big opportunity to compete with Facebook, but that’s passed. Arrington cites a rumor that Twitter CEO Dick Costolo took the company to Google saying it was raising this big a round at this valuation, and gave the search giant a chance to acquire Twitter, but  ”Google pooh-poohed it”. After the chat, Arrington told me this was when Twitter ended up raising $200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation, so the price Google would have had to pay could have been around there. Wilson, who’s Twitter investment and former board seat must have made him familiar with the discussion, said Google decided to build social, and hasn’t considered buying something as big as Twitter in the space ever since. Google+ is off to a slow start, at least in terms of people actually using it, not just signing up. But Twitter might not have been the right fit. Google needed a social layer that could integrate into all its product, not just a micro-blogging platform. Still, Google is now a distant third in social, and Twitter’s off the table. Wilson says Twitter’s founders and board are now deadset on it staying independent. What’s The Value Of Angels? “I’ve never seen angels being lazy” says Wilson , refuting  Ben Horowitz’s claim  that angel investors make too much money for too little work. Wilson released a flood of insights into Facebook’s valuation, and the future of Silicon Valley “Venture capital is not the most risk-taking part of the equation. We wait until things are more developed” says Wilson. He trusts angels and the early legwork and diligence they do. “I don’t know where ‘lazy’ comes from. They’re probably the most important part of the capital stack because they believe in entrepreneurs before VCs do.” [Image Credit: Joi Ito ]

SpaceX To Attempt A Sec...

SpaceX and Elon Musk will not be held from the history books. Last night the company announced that engineers were currently replacing a faulty valve on engine #5, and if successful pending a data review today, the company would attempt a second launch on Tuesday, May 22nd. This comes as SpaceX’s maiden voyage to the International Space Station was cut a half second short by an automated safety function built into the rocket. SpaceX is attempting to become the first privately owned entity to reach and dock a capsule with the ISS, therefore increasing its chance to win what will likely be a lucrative contract to ferry cargo and humans between Earth and Space. So far these duties have been carried out by the U.S., Russia and Japan. However, as governments are cutting space budget programs they are looking to hand over these relatively nominal duties to the private sector and redirect funds to long-range space exploration and science programs. Come next Tuesday, SpaceX will attempt to make history again .

SpaceX’s Historic Launc...

“Entering terminal count autosequence. 60 seconds to engine fire. #DragonLaunch,” tweeted Elon Musk as his space company was less than a minute away from it’s historic flight . But the launch didn’t happen. Nothing happened as longtime NASA commentator George Diller counted down the seconds, “3..2..1……We’ve had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur.” Musk tweeted 11 minutes later at 5:06am EDT, “Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.” The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was literally a half second away from launching. NASA is still inspecting the engine but early reports, tweeted by both Musk and NASA , state that the chamber pressure on engine 5 was abnormally high, causing the rocket’s on-board computer to abort the launch. SpaceX was on the cusp of making history and becoming the first privately owned institution to dock a capsule with the International Space Station. Only governments, the US, Russia and Japan, have so far accomplished this task. SpaceX is hoping to take over the transport duties from NASA starting first with cargo but eventually shuttling personnel between terra firma and the ISS. This isn’t SpaceX’s first space rodeo. The company has been launching its Falcon rockets since 2006 although the first flight of a Falcon 1 failed a few seconds in. The rocket on the launchpad today, a Falcon 9, saw a successful first flight in 2010. Today’s launch, while cut short, will likely (hopefully) just be a footnote in SpaceX history. The company is set to try again in the coming days. The next launch attempt will come on May 22 but it could be pushed to May 23 according to some reports.