Sky has put US$45m into Southeast Asian video streaming service Iflix in the British satellite broadcaster’s latest strategic investment in a startup, and its first in Asia.
British satellite broadcaster Sky (LON:SKY) has made another strategic investment in a startup by putting US$45m into Southeast Asian video streaming service Iflix.
The capital injection is part of a strategic partnership with Sky looking to identify areas of potential collaboration in the emerging markets – Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines – where Iflix operates. It marks Sky’s first investment in Asia.
The OTT service streams Hollywood and Asian films as well as regional programming, similar to US-based online streaming firm Netflix’s model, and plans to expand into neighbouring countries including Indonesia and Vietnam.
Iflix launched in May 2015 after securing US$30m in a funding round from investment firm Catcha Group and Filipino telecoms group PLDT. Evolution Media Capital is also invested in the venture. Sky said its outlay included the purchase of shares equivalent to US$2.5m from existing investors.
Iflix said Catcha remained its majority owner following the investment, and said that Emtek Group also participated in the funding round.
Catcha’s CEO Patrick Grove is Iflix’s chairman and co-founded the business with Mark Britt, who is Iflix’s CEO. Evolution Media Partners co-founder Rick Hess chairs Iflix’s advisory board.
Andrew Griffith (pictured), Sky’s CFO, described Iflix as “Southeast Asia’s most exciting and fastest-growing streaming TV service”, and said there were lots of opportunities for the companies to work together and share expertise as they expand.
Sky describes itself as Europe’s largest provider of TV content on mobile, IPTV and OTT services and distributes its content through NOW TV, Sky Online and Sky Go. The company is facing increasing competition from OTT players such as Netflix which are also offering premium content.
FuboTV, a US sports streaming service, has also received investment from Sky this week. The British group contributed US$6m to FuboTV’s series B funding round.
The startup launched at the beginning of 2015 and has distribution deals with TV channels that hold rights to sports content, including Univision Networks and BeIN Sports. Exclusive live sport has been the bedrock of Sky’s pay-TV offering.
Sky has recently made strategic investments in a number of firms to compliment the technology side of its business as it conducts R&D through M&A.
In January it invested US$10m in DataXu, which specialises in programmatic marketing analytics, in early February it put US$427k into sports marketing company InCrowd and in December it injected US$300k into special interest channel-owner TV4 Entertainment. In October 2014 it invested US$500k in LA-based online video aggregator Pluto.TV.
