EdgeCast, a content delivery network, raises $6 million
updated
Content delivery networks are increasingly important to large media companies that want to provide play no-delay, high quality music and videos over the web.
CDNs are distributed computing systems, built to smoothly and quickly transmit large media files like videos and music online to many users. Every media company needs a CDN.
Los Angeles-based EdgeCast has differentiated itself by charging separately for bandwidth component of its service, instead of lumping it in as part of a fixed cost package of other CDN services. In other words, while other CDNs force customers to lock into a contract to pay for bandwidth as a fixed price, EdgeCast adjusts the bandwidth cost as the market price swings up and down, it says.
There’s speculation that market leaders Akamai, Limelight and CDNetworks are feeling pricing pressure, but that’s being debated. Those companies have business partnerships with many large music and video sites.
Disney, which is also reportedly looking to acquire 20 consumer internet startups, is apparently thinking about its delivery costs. Its investing arm, Steamboat Ventures, has led a $6 million investing round into the company — a strategic relationship between the two companies.
EdgeCast previous raised $4 million.
Next Story: Clearspring launches widgets for Madison Avenue
Previous Story: Universal adds catalog to imeem
About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.