Unreel.me, a startup that has developed an OTT streaming platform for networks and publishers, said it has raised $1.5 million in pre-Series A financing, led by Michael Kelly, the CEO of Denver-based IoT Broadband, LLC and a former exec at Dish Network and Blockbuster.
Kelly is joined by media-focused angel investors that include Digital Ignition, Vineyard Point Associates, and Poise Ventures, among others.
Unreel.me also appointed Kelly to its board of directors along with John Pavia, EVP of business and corporate development at LogicSource, a Bain Capital Ventures portfolio company based in Norwalk, Conn.
Unreel said it builds OTT apps and sites for video networks as an alternative to traditional video distribution methods such as satellite and cable, and claims it can extend its partners’ reach to platforms such as web browsers, iOS, tvOS, Roku, Android, XUMO, Vewd, and various smart TV platforms “in a matter of weeks.”
Unreel noted that it also secured four U.S. patents focused on Artificial Intelligence known internally as Bumblebee, technology that “crawls the web for time-stamped comments surrounding videos in Unreel’s system.” The company said more than 50 million points of data around this type have been indexed by its A.I. technology.
“With this funding, we can continue to grow the company’s technology platform to universally onboard and distribute content, enabling a frictionless distribution of content,” Dan Goikhman, CEO of Unreel, said in a statement.
Launched in 2015 with offices in New York and Santa Monica, Unreel’s public partners include JustLOL, JASH, Popcornflix, RecoilTV, Taste It, and Throttle.
