Wireless Video Uplinks? LiveU Says Yes!

Written by Ryan Lawler

Tuesday, June 3. 2008 at 05:00 PM EDT Post a comment

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LiveU Ltd. , a startup looking to democratize the video uplink process using wireless networks, has received $9 million in funding from Canaan Partners and Carmel Ventures .

If LiveU's vision is realized, broadcasters would connect their recording device -- be it a camcorder or professional video camera -- to a device that relays the signal via WiFi, WiMax, and 3G cellular data networks rather than traditional satellite uplinks. The LiveU network then feeds the connection to a destination of the customer's choice.

The company has raised a total of $12 million to date. LiveU says the primary advantage of its video uplink services is that it will come at a lower cost.

Izhar Shay, venture partner at Canaan Partners, says his firm made the investment because it sees a significant opportunity for making live video broadcasting available to all in the "YouTube generation."

Shay says says live broadcast today is "very expensive and very complex and not available to everyone in the field with [a] camcorder in their [hands]." LiveU could change that, he says, by "breaking down the wall between traditional media and new media."

For now, LiveU sees itself either giving away the networking device for free or charging a nominal fee for it. The company then expects to make money with a service model under which it charges users for the uplink service on a pay-by-use basis.

The company is in limited commercial deployments with about 20 of its devices in use, but expects that to grow to about 1,000 devices in the field by year-end.

LiveU CEO Shmuel Wasserman says the service is initially targeted at professional and semi-professional users, but that the company could expand into the consumer market by 2010.