Qumu, Inc. Secures $10.7M in Series C Funding with Leading Technology, Expanding Customer Base, and Growing Demand
AT&T's Recently Announced Strategic Agreement with Qumu to Deliver and Manage Multimedia Content for Businesses Worldwide and Live/On-Demand Webcasting as Part of Global Enterprise Digital Media Initiative Confirms Increasing Demand
Emeryville, CA — July 21, 2008 — Qumu, Inc., the leader in Enterprise Video Communications, today announced the completion of a $10.7 million Series C funding round led by ATV (Advanced Technology Ventures) and joined by SAP Ventures, a division of SAP AG, Storm Ventures, Garage Technology Ventures, Halo Opportunity Fund, and the Angels Forum. Qumu, which counts Dell, Microsoft, and eBay among its enterprise customers, will use the funds to continue to accelerate its product development efforts and expand its sales and marketing operations.
The company further extends its market leadership with a strategic agreement with AT&T, announced as part of AT&T's Digital Media Solutions initiative to deliver and manage multimedia content for businesses worldwide. Qumu will collaborate with AT&T to deliver business-to-business and business-to-consumer streaming video as well as live and on-demand webcasting over emerging media networks. AT&T will integrate the software expertise of Qumu and two other strategic providers with its own capabilities to offer companies comprehensive yet simplified network-based solutions to encode, deliver, manage, and support video and multimedia files.
The use of video as the preferred choice for communicating in today's dispersed work environment is at an all-time high. Just as there has been rapid consumer adoption of web video technology, so too has web video usage increased within enterprises. Applications include live and on-demand webcasts, recorded videoconferences, employee training, executive briefings, and product announcements. This latest financing round will enable Qumu to take full advantage of the growing market opportunity for video streaming and video-on-demand in the enterprise.
"We believe that video has enormous potential to improve the quality and effectiveness of communications in the enterprise," said Wes Raffel, general partner, ATV. "We are impressed with the considerable progress Qumu has made in successfully implementing solutions at Fortune 100 companies and believe this additional funding will allow the company to further strengthen its leadership position in this exciting market."
Qumu solutions provide central management for all key video infrastructure components, including videoconferencing, encoders and other creation devices, digital signage distribution, network storage, and both internal and external Content Distribution Networks. The company enables enterprises to simplify the management of vital video assets by connecting video components with their network infrastructures for cost-effective control of video.
"Companies with distributed workforces are asking how they can reduce or eliminate the need for travel while maintaining effective communication," said David Hartwig, partner at SAP Ventures. "Qumu has a proven, enterprise-class video solution that is providing an answer to that question for a growing list of impressive customers. This is an important piece of the corporate digital media market, and Qumu is the leader."
Qumu Strengthens Strategic Relationships with Polycom and Microsoft
As further evidence of Qumu's momentum, it has signed Polycom, the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice communications solutions, to its OEM program, allowing the company to offer a video content management solution that bridges video streaming with video conferencing. Qumu also attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program, which recognizes the highest levels of technological excellence, marketplace impact, and customer satisfaction delivered through Microsoft products and services.
"Video is becoming an essential element for effectively managing and communicating change to employees, but the implementation challenges can be daunting," said Ray Hood, president and CEO, Qumu. "This investment underscores the value of Qumu's unique ability to simplify what is a very complex problem, providing solutions that work with existing IT infrastructure to make video communications easily available across large enterprises."
With this financing round, Wes Raffel, a general partner at ATV, joins the Qumu board of directors.
About Qumu, Inc.
Video plays an increasingly strategic role in the way enterprises communicate internally and externally. Qumu, the leader in Enterprise Video Communications (EVC), enables organizations to easily capture, manage, publish and distribute live and on-demand video content. The company provides a single web services based software solution that seamlessly manages all video applications, and leverages existing video, storage and distribution hardware and software infrastructure. Customers worldwide, including AT&T, Abbott Labs, Citigroup, Dell, eBay and others are experiencing the value of the company's patented solutions. For more information, visit www.qumu.com.
About ATV
Founded in 1979, ATV (Advanced Technology Ventures) is a bi-coastal venture capital firm with more than $1.6 billion in capital under management. ATV works closely with entrepreneurial teams in several technology markets, including software and services, communications, IT infrastructure, IT clean technology, and healthcare to build emerging-growth business ventures into market leaders. With more than 25 years of experience, ATV has a proven track record of success in helping to build strong, sustainable business enterprises. For more information, please visit www.atvcapital.com.
About SAP Ventures
SAP Ventures invests in innovative and disruptive software and services companies globally. We pursue opportunities across all stages for outstanding financial return. Our goal is to bring substantial benefit to all parties by facilitating interaction between portfolio companies and SAP and its ecosystem of customers and partners. SAP Ventures has a successful track record of building industry-leading companies by partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and top-tier venture capital firms since 1996. For more information, visit www.sapventures.com.
About Storm Ventures
Storm Ventures was founded in 2000 by a seasoned group of industry veterans with the common vision of sharing our collective experience, passion and energy to help talented and driven entrepreneurs build great companies of enduring value. Storm Ventures focuses on seed and early stage information technology companies which best leverages the team's operational perspective and experience and enables Storm to add value in the critical early stages of a company's development. For more information on Storm Ventures, visit its website at www.stormventures.com.
About Garage Technology Ventures
Garage Technology Ventures is a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with investors that include Thomas Weisel Partners and CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System. Garage is focused on investing in emerging technology startups in the Western U.S. For more information about Garage, visit http://www.garage.com.
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