Time Warner Cable has made a strategic investment in BlackArrow, a provider of video-on-demand advertising systems, bringing the vendor's total funding raised to $65 million.
In conjunction with the investment, Joan Gillman, Time Warner Cable president of media sales, has been named to the BlackArrow board of directors.
Time Warner Cable's stake follows Motorola Mobility's investment last November that, combined, brought BlackArrow's third round of funding from $20 million to $27 million. Existing BlackArrow investors are: Cisco Systems, Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital, Mayfield Fund, Motorola Mobility, NDS and Polaris Venture Partners.
"Time Warner Cable has been a leading voice and advocate of advanced advertising, and was early to recognize the potential of New TV as a profitable advertising platform," Dean Denhart, BlackArrow CEO, said in a statement. "We believe that the company's involvement as an investor is further validation of BlackArrow as a thought and technology leader in the advanced advertising space, and we look forward to benefiting from Joan's insight and experience as a member of our board."
Gillman, for her part, commented, "BlackArrow has played an invaluable role in accelerating dynamic VOD ad insertion and is well positioned to be a growing part of the ad ecosystem. Our investment in BlackArrow highlights Time Warner Cable's commitment to supporting our partners as the industry continues to develop new business and advertising models across a broad spectrum of television distribution platforms and devices."
