Billionaire Alan Howard Joins Latest $20M Bet on Decentralized Video Network Livepeer

The funding comes five months after Livepeer’s initial Series B round, which also raised $20 million.

AccessTimeIconJan 5, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 7:16 p.m. UTC
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Livepeer, an Ethereum-based network that helps startups add live and on-demand video to their products, has raised $20 million in a Series B extension funding round with backing from new investors Alan Howard and Tiger Global, as well as participation from existing investors.

The funding comes five months after Livepeer’s initial Series B round, which also raised $20 million and was led by Digital Currency Group, which is the parent company of CoinDesk.

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  • Howard co-founded Brevan Howard Asset Management, a European hedge fund focused on macro trading, but stepped down from his CEO role in 2019 to focus on his personal investing. He has a net worth of $2.8 billion, according to Forbes.

    The new funding will go toward expanding the go-to-market and customer base using the MistServer video software that Livepeer acquired last fall, Livepeer founder and CEO Doug Petkanics said in an interview with CoinDesk.

    MistServer is a flexible content delivery technology that helps developers build on a cost-effective infrastructure and scale streaming applications across a wide variety of verticals, including entertainment, events and gaming.

    Livepeer’s near-term roadmap includes plans for artificial intelligence-backed smart video and peer-to-peer content delivery, as well as AI-enhanced content moderation, song detection and video fingerprinting.

    Livepeer plans to make MistServer widely available to video developers in an open source model rather than the license model typically used in the video industry.

    The company’s future plans also include migrating more of its protocol to a layer two solution that would be less expensive for node operators and token holders.

    “I think this is going to be the year that Web 3 applications touch millions of consumers. I’m excited for Livepeer to be the video layer that powers a lot of that,” said Petkanics.

    CORRECTION (Jan. 5, 15:51 UTC): A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the amount raised in Livepeer’s initial Series B round was $28 million.

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    CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.

    Brandy Betz

    Brandy covered crypto-related venture capital deals for CoinDesk.


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