alarm:clock

Social Networking - Thursday, July 29, 2010

Social TV's Philo Raises Funding

Philo has raised an undisclosed amount of first-round funding from North Bridge Venture Partners, DFJ Gotham, ENIAC Ventures and Stephen Lambert. Philo makes TV interactive by letting viewers use their mobile devices to check-in to shows and interact with programming and other viewers.

Philo timed its funding release with two new product introductions. The company updated its iPhone and iPod Touch app to now supports check-in to time-shifted TV content. In Philo also debuted its social TV Web application, at at PlayPHILO.com.

The startup says it is also developing television projects with the Studio Lambert and Donald Trump Productions to integrate Philo into the show. Philo says it plans to monetize through promotions.

Long story short, Philo is looking to take the Foursquare model to TV. From a monetization angle, we like Foursquare's prospects as local monetizes very well - just look at the prices that Yelp charges. In contrast, sites focused on TV tend to monetize very poorly.

Co-founder and CEO David Levy was an investment banker who has turned to Internet ventures - he founded Wharton Angels and virtual gifting site TigerBow.

View - site