Qwilt Inc., which optimizes network performance for delivering high-quality video, has raised $24 million in two rounds of funding from Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Crescent Point Group and other investors including Rob Glaser, founder and former CEO of RealNetworks Inc.
Qwilt’s products identify, monitor, store and deliver Internet video through a single platform, which the company says will ease the burden on carriers and help them better monetize the video traffic they carry. These products currently are being tested with five global carriers.
Tom Dyal, a partner at Redpoint Ventures, has joined Qwilt’s board. “So much of the buzz about Internet video today is on the consumer side, around the incredible growth of services like Netflix and Hulu, which are feeding shows and movies to users on PCs and smartphones,” Dyal said. “But few people are talking about the enormous strain all this new content is putting on Internet providers – the companies forced to carry all this video through their overburdened pipes.” Redpoint partners were early investors in Netflix.
Qwilt’s CEO Alon Maor said video now represents about 40 percent of all Internet traffic, and is projected to quadruple by 2015. “The recent rise of bandwidth-usage caps shows how difficult and costly it is for carriers to deliver sophisticated video services today. Their networks are simply not architected for it,” he said. “Qwilt offers a win-win-win solution for carriers, content providers and, most important, users.”
Qwilt is based in Redwood Shores, Calif., is founded and staffed by veterans from Cisco and Juniper.
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