TV makers have to get extra lifetime worth from a buyer after promoting a unit. With extra competitors out there, corporations usually have to promote TVs at a reduced value with decrease margins. One of the simplest ways for them to get well the cash is by hanging partnerships with channels, streaming companies, and advertisers.
That is the core thesis round Barcelona-based Titan OS, which gives a sensible TV working system to TV makers with a promise to get higher lifetime worth out of the client.
The corporate mentioned at this time it has raised €50 million ($58 million) in Collection A funding, led by Highland Europe, with participation from Mangrove Capital Companions. The corporate didn’t specify how a lot cash it has raised up to now, however mentioned that its seed spherical, raised in 2023, was in double-digit thousands and thousands.
The startup was based in 2023 by Jacinto Roca, Timothy Edwards, Miquel Barba, and Tobias Pfalzgraff. Roca beforehand based a streaming startup referred to as Wukai.television and offered it to Rakuten. Different co-founders have additionally held varied roles at Rakuten.
Titan OS now serves 18 million customers, largely throughout Europe and Latin America, through partnerships with Phillips and JVC.
The software program is designed to assist customers uncover content material simply, as Nielsen mentioned in 2023 that the time spent looking for content material to observe has elevated. Titan OS goals to make use of knowledge insights from customers and its huge content material portfolio to scale back that point. Throughout the OS, customers have entry to a mixture of broadcast TV, streaming apps that they subscribe to, together with FAST (free ad-supported tv) channels from Titan OS’s companions.
For the corporate, income alternative lies in a couple of key areas. First, it companions with many FAST companies to assist them attain the native viewers. Second, there are promoting alternatives on the house display screen of the TV and through streams that attain thousands and thousands of customers. The corporate mentioned its content material companions are keen to succeed in new audiences by way of promoting, particularly event-heavy content material channels that present sports activities.
Titan OS additionally presents shoppable adverts which have clients carry out actions like scanning a QR code to purchase an merchandise. The startup mentioned that by way of these areas, it has grown 10x in income in two years.
Whereas TV makers like Sony may not shed their core working system, they’re eager to accomplice with corporations like Titan OS to supply extra FAST channels to their clients. A number of stories recommend that for TV makers, promoting is turning into a extra profitable revenue-earning possibility than {hardware} itself. Titan OS COO Edwards buys into this ethos.
“It used to be the case that hardware manufacturers made most of their profit from selling the device itself. But now, some hardware manufacturers that have their own operating system make more profit from ongoing content and advertising revenues than they do from actually selling the hardware. And this is a big change,” he informed TechCrunch over a name.
“What we offer them [TV companies] is an ability to generate ongoing content and advertising revenues after the device is sold, which is not the status quo in the market.”
Edwards mentioned that, to broaden the corporate’s footprint in Europe, the corporate is bolstering its portfolio of native language ad-supported channels catered to every geography. With this technique, the startup, which competes with the likes of Whale TV and Xperi’s TiVO, presents over 100 channels in these markets.
The corporate at present has 200 individuals throughout three workplaces in Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Taipei. The extra funding will assist Titan OS bolster the workers throughout product and gross sales, work on new partnerships, and create new promoting tasks. The corporate goals to keep up its development curve and lift further funding subsequent yr.
Laurance Garrett, a accomplice at Highland Europe, equated Titan OS with WeTransfer, the VC agency’s funding that was acquired by Bending Spoons.
“With Titan OS, there is the beauty of the advertising model on top of the actual core OS. It was something we could identify with [from their experience with WeTransfer], and the partners loved it,” he mentioned.
Garrett added that with Titan OS’s European roots, the corporate can higher perceive the nitty-gritty of the native market as in comparison with gamers coming in from overseas.
