With each new generation of television, broadcasters and marketers look for fresh ways to keep the audience invested in what they are watching. These days it is not unheard of for TV viewers to see discreet messages appear in the margins of their screens during broadcasts. If they click on these messages, marketing material or additional footage related to the show may appear. However, most viewers do not realize that platforms such as Ensequence’s iTV Manager helps connect them to this content on Web-connected televisions.
Ensequence, a New York company, offers its technology to broadcasters such as NBCUniversal and HBO, as well as service providers that include Time Warner Cable. The platform is used by these customers to insert information and messages into shows and ads. Now, with a recent $26 million investment round led by Myrian Capital, Ensequence plans to expand the development of its platform for reaching mobile devices.
Peter Low, the CEO of Ensequence, says his twelve-year-old company has raised some $140 million in funding since its inception. The company will put its latest funding round, announced May 11, towards advancing the ways the Ensequence platform works in the mobile sector as well as with Internet-connected televisions. “The bulk of the new funding is going to support the mobile and smart TV capabilities of the product,” he says.
Ensequence’s platform lets marketers such as Nike and Ford, service providers, and broadcasters create new layers of engagement with viewers. If an icon appears during a car commercial, for example, viewers who use their remotes to click on the icon may be taken to more details about the vehicle. “There is a prompt that allows
