Video Streaming Enabler Jigsee Raises Series A Round From Indian Angel

Jigsee Inc, which enables video streaming on mobiles, has raised Series A round of funding from Indian Angel Network (IAN). VCCircle has learnt that IAN has invested $1.2 million in the firm although the company declined to comment on the information. Jigsee raised its angel round in July 2010.

Jigsee is founded by Ray Newal, who formerly headed content and business development at Yahoo! Canada. Its CTO, Areef Reza, was employed at Vayyoo Inc, Research In Motion and Nortel Networks.

Rehan Yar Khan from IAN will join the company's board. Jigsee, which is planning to shift its headquarters from Toronto to Mumbai, will use the funds to make this transition.

"The intent was always to develop for emerging markets - we really needed to establish a centre here to tap the opportunities. We will maintain our development facility in Canada but all of the hiring for our development team will now be in India. In Indian Angel Network, we have found partners whose market expertise will assist our strategy and execution in fulfilling this mission", said Ray Newal, CEO and co-founder, Jigsee Inc, speaking to VCCircle.

"Jigsee's proprietary technology and platform offers distribution of mobile video streaming across 2.5G, 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi environments enabling content providers and advertisers to reach the widest possible audience in India. This space is very exciting, as we expect, mobile streaming video to match the viewership of DTH, in five years," said IAN investor Rehan Yar Khan. IAN has funded 23 ideas, including four outside India, and have made five successful exits, with a recent exit giving a 5x return in 15 months. Khan recently invested in consumer electronics ecommerce company Buytheprice.com.

Jigsee offers an app for video streaming that overcomes the barriers of low-end mobiles and poor network connectivity, enabled through its Smart Client technology. In April, Jigsee will release version 2.0 of its technology platform which will offer support for Android OS based devices and also allow users to create playlists of videos and share them with friends. "We will put in many resources into developing the Android app. J2ME is still a big percentage of the market in India," said Newal. It will also launch Blackberry and iPhone apps later this year.

The company has been focused on technology behind its app so far and, now it is developing content for the same. Its move to Mumbai is aimed at setting up a base where it can start talking to broadcasters for their content. "We will be tying up with multiple broadcasters in the coming months to bring content related to sports, clips from movies, entertainment and also regional content onto mobiles," said Newal.

The company has also discussed its app with manufacturers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Micromax and hopes they will promote the app, which the company claims is downloaded in the 1000s every day.