RipCode, a company that offers online video streaming and transcoding services, has closed a $12.5 million funding round led by Granite Ventures with participation from existing investors Hunt Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, Vesbridge Partners, and ATA Ventures. The company, which was founded in 2005, had previously raised $19.5 million in funding. As part of the deal, Granite’s Eric Zimits will join RipCode’s board.
One of the major issues with streaming video lies in offering content compatible with the wide array of devices that can access the web. Sites are oftentimes forced to store the same video multiple times in different file formats and sizes to accommodate as many devices as possible, but this can lead to unnecessary storage and processing costs.
RipCode allows content providers to negate this issue by transcoding their videos on the fly, without the need to process and store multiple copies. The company recently scored a major win with its partnership with MySpace, which now uses the company’s services to offer streaming video to mobile phones. And given the increasing diversity of devices that can access the high-speed web, we can probably expect to see similar partnerships between RipCode and other major video providers in the future.
RipCode plans to use the new funds to further expand its sales and marketing efforts, as well as continue development on its infrastructure and software offerings.