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Venture Capital News: LiveClips Receives Additional $2.15M

2012-02-14
STAMFORD, CT, Innovator and pioneer in the creation, digitization and real-time delivery of smart video clips to sports and fantasy league fans, received new investments totaling $2.15 million over the past two months.
LiveClips, an innovator and pioneer in the creation, digitization and real-time delivery of smart video clips to sports and fantasy league fans via Internet-enabled and mobile devices, said today that it has received new investments totaling $2.15 million over the past two months.

CEO Lewis Bakes said LiveClips, received $1.15 million in late December from two funds focused on investing in Connecticut businesses and managed by Advantage Capital Partners (www.advantagecap.com), a 20-year-old national investment firm with more than $1 billion under management, and Ironwood Capital Connecticut of Avon (www.ironwoodcap.com), a 20-year-old regional investment firm with more than $400 million under management. Two private investors also participated, he said.

An additional $1 million cash infusion closed in February, he said, with $500,000 each from Advantage/Ironwood funds and Connecticut Innovations (www.ctinnovations.com) of Rocky Hill, the state's quasi-public authority responsible for technology-based economic development. Last summer, Connecticut Innovations supplemented the initial investment made by Amazing Grace Media LLC, of New Canaan, a private firm led by Mr. Bakes, by investing $1 million in the company.

LiveClips' proprietary smart video clipping technology ingests live feeds from games and creates, digitizes and then delivers discrete searchable video clips of every play and replay to Web-enabled or mobile devices within 10 seconds of live action, in accordance with personalized filters set by customers. Live Clips, which relocated to Stamford from New York City in 2011, created 83,000 discrete video clips, with 6,887 distributed to fans who viewed them over 65 million times during the 2011 NCAA/BCS college football season. ESPNĀ® and Major League BaseballĀ®, among others, have worked with LiveClips' technology.

Mr. Bakes said that LiveClips "continues to pursue its strategy of solidifying relationships with strategic customers, investors and partners who can provide the critical mass necessary for it to expand quickly enough to meet the growing demands of the marketplace," he said. "On the heals of another major national contract for NCAA college football for the 2011 season, LiveClips," he said, "is currently working to finalize contracts to deliver our service offering for soccer, golf, football, baseball and basketball in 2012 and 2013."

"We are pleased to strengthen our support of LiveClips with this new investment," said Peter Longo, president and executive director of Connecticut Innovations. "Since LiveClips relocated to Connecticut last year, LiveClips has expanded and fortified its team and gained further customer traction. We look forward to the company's continued growth and success."

Speaking for the Ironwood-Advantage investment team, Marc Reich, president of Ironwood Capital, said "LiveClips is demonstrating its technological prowess in delivering more sports clips faster than its competition. Our investment in LiveClips will help the company extend its team of experts and its infrastructure in Connecticut, as well as its marketing reach. We are teaming with a high potential growth company with the ability to lead an increasingly important industry."

About LiveClips

LiveClips (www.LiveClips.com) is an innovator and leader in the development and delivery of instantaneous video content to sports and fantasy league fans via mobile and Internet-enabled devices. Headquartered in Stamford, LiveClips' game-changing advanced technology automates the previously time- and labor-intensive processes of creating game clips highlighting the most exciting and important plays, enabling broadcasters and rights holders to dramatically increase the efficiency of their sports coverage. LiveClips is also pioneering a new era of mobile engagement, creating instant in-game clips that users can filter by teams, players and kinds of plays. Founded in 2008, LiveClips created 83,000 discrete video clips, of which 6,887 were distributed to fans who viewed them over 65 million times during the 2011 BCS college football season, and has been used by Major League Baseball and by ESPN for NCAA college football and the FIFA World Cup.

About Advantage Capital Partners and Ironwood Capital Connecticut

In 2010, Ironwood Capital Connecticut, an Avon-based investment management firm, partnered with Advantage Capital Partners, a leading venture capital and small business finance firm, to raise two funds, totaling $83 million for investment in Connecticut-based companies. To date, Ironwood Capital Connecticut and Advantage Capital have invested more than $25 million in 16 Connecticut companies. The investments from Ironwood Capital Connecticut and Advantage Capital are made possible by the Insurance Reinvestment Fund Program, which is administered by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development.

About Connecticut Innovations Inc.

Connecticut Innovations (CI) is a quasi-public organization dedicated to driving a vibrant, entrepreneurial, technology-based economy in Connecticut. CI stimulates high-tech growth by investing in early-stage Connecticut technology companies, university/industry research collaborations and technology transfer and collaborating with government, business, nonprofit and academic organizations to advance technology growth and promote public policies consistent with CI's mission.
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