Fresh off a recent $6.3 million round of “A” series funding, Tivli, a Boston-area startup that has developed an IP video platform tailored for college campuses, has renamed the company and its underlying service to Philo.
Along with the name change, Philo also announced the rollout of a cloud DVR service that lets students record shows on network servers and play them back on smartphones, tablets, Roku boxes and other IP-connected devices. According to a company FAQ, the Philo DVR provides each customer with enough storage to hold up to 10 hours of video.
Philo partners with colleges and pay-TV operators such as Dish Network to deliver an authenticated video service, including access to the HBO Go TV Everywhere app on some deployments, via closed, IP-based campus networks. The platform, installed at the campus data center, delivers adaptive bit rate streams up to 2 Mbps (for HD) and integrates social media platforms such as Facebook.
Schools on board with Philo include Yale University, Fort Hays State University, University of Washington, Harvard University, Wesleyan University, Pepperdine University, and William Patterson University of New Jersey. Others are still in the pilot phase, a Philo spokeswoman said.
Philo, founded in 2010, holds that its approach is attractive to programmers such as HBO because the system has been shown to reduce video piracy rates and DMCA takedown notices among college students.
Investors include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Felicis Ventures, Rho Ventures, CBC New Media Group, HBO, Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments and WME. Seed investors included NEA, Flybridge Capital Partners, the Experiment Fund, Felicis Ventures and TriplePoint Capital.
Company co-founders Tuan Ho and Nicholas Krasney kicked off the project from a Harvard dorm room.
