Clearleap Raises $20 Million From Susquehanna To Make TV More Multiplatform

Clearleap builds software infrastructure that helps content owners, distributors, and aggregators to make TV and movies available online and on a wide array of devices. While it’s spent the last several years getting U.S.-based video providers on board with that idea, it’s now ready to take on the European and Latin America markets.

To tackle those new regions, as well as to expand its existing practice in the U.S., Clearleap has raised $20 million in funding led by Susquehanna Growth Equity. The round also included existing investors Trinity Ventures and Noro-Moseley, and brings total amount raised to $36 million.

Thanks to the growth of interest in TV Everywhere services, as well as the understanding that consumers just assume their favorite shows should be viewable on any device, Clearleap has seen adoption from a number of big TV players in the U.S. Clients include companies like HBO, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, the Food Network, and Travel Channel, each of which was looking to make their content available on a wider number of platforms.

Now it’s looking to aggressively expand outside the U.S. It recently launched an office in Amsterdam with about a dozen employees there, and hired former Cisco exec Preben Schack to lead its sales team there. It’s also gotten data center space in Amsterdam and Frankfurt thanks to big win in the region, which Clearleap CEO Braxton Jarratt says the company plans to announce soon.

Latin America is another market the company plans to go after, according to Jarratt, and it expects to expand into that region over the coming year. Altogether, Clearleap expects to increase headcount from about 100 today to 250 employees in the next 18 months.

In both cases, interest in multiplatform TV services has come as a response to the introduction of Netflix and other streaming video services in those markets. While Netflix has long been a player in the U.S. market, its launch in new international markets such as Europe and Latin America has spurred local content owners to think about making their content available on new devices. And, well, Clearleap is there to help.

The company sees competition from both traditional network service providers such as Cisco, Arris, and Motorola on the one hand, and from online video platforms like thePlatform and Ooyala on the other. But according to Jarratt, the company sits comfortably in the sweet spot between them.

“We built the company from the ground up to have both sets of DNA,” Jarratt said, touting employee expertise in both the networking space and on the application end of things. “Together we built something that appeals to both buyers in satellite uplink, as well as those building apps.”

And now it has $20 million more to compete against them. Cheers.

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