Just as Apple is talking the talk about Apple TV, Roku, sensing that it has the device in its sights and plans to walk the walk. It has taken on another round of cash to push into more international markets, with a $60 million funding round led by US TV player Hearst, and from both BSky B and its parent News Corp. This brings its total funding to over $133 million. It is likely that its next round will be a public one.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was saying how Apple TV had sold 13 million devices (see separate item this week) and was ready to go to the next level, but without intimating exactly what that was.
This round constitutes Series F funding for Roku but it is really only the second large funding round, and the cash is designated to push into more international markets, after breaking out of the US last year into the UK. Roku has already announced its new Roku 3 streaming player, and is known as the first default player device for Netflix. Roku says it is working with two dozen OEMs who are making more than 3.5 million Roku Ready devices, predominantly TVs that will be in retail by the end of the year.
Roku has been hinting that much of the Roku functionality and UI can be implemented on smart TVs such as Samsung and LG devices, and this last statement clearly points to a new business model for Roku, perhaps one that is far more profitable. Only this week a new implementation of CloudTV, the underlying technology from ActiveVideo was placed on Roku in a deal with Net2TV, which will mean that the same UI can be used on other devices direct from the cloud, such as tablets and cellphones, at least for now with the Net2TV service.
Roku has now signed deals with hundreds of entertainment channels and in January said this had reached 700 channels including new deals with Blockbuster, On Demand group, Fox, Now (BSkyB), PBS in the US, Spotify and Vevo. Once a deal is cut with ActiveVideo by one channel it is likely that the Roku UI and content could easily be unchained from the hardware, and that Roku could transform into an HTML 5 aggregator for OTT services, something that Apple is keen to become.