VentureBeat

BlackArrow, a San Mateo, Calif., startup, is offering a new technology to help keep TV advertisers happy.

The company, in secrecy until now, will announce tomorrow (Monday) that it wants to insert targeted ads into on-demand viewing by placing a piece of hardware between cable operators and consumers. Prior to the user watching an on-demand show, BlackArrow helps deliver a brief ad, tailored to the theme of the show and the user’s apparent preferences. For example, a teenage boy might be delivered an ad for an upcoming game like Halo 3.

The company isn’t just another video ad company. It is backed with a $12 million funding round, led by Comcast Interactive Capital, the investment arm of the cable giant.

While DVRs like the TiVo will still allow users to fast forward past advertising, BlackArrow will open up the field for cable companies to profit from acting as remote ad servers. BlackArrow will count on the cable companies to offer their own DVR technology. The advantage for the consumer is not having to worry about buying or installing a hardware DVR. A majority of viewers still haven’t.

BlackArrow is less revolutionary than we’d thought. The company spent more than a year in stealth mode developing its product, and good sources of ours originally suggested that the original aim of the company was to destroy the ad-skipping capabilities of the TiVo. That apparently is no longer the case, if it ever was.

Indeed, the amount of advertising you’ll have to put up with should decrease dramatically, sad CEO Dean Denhart. Advancing standards allow for targeting that is much more valuable to advertisers. Consumers who are dead-set against seeing ads will still be able to rely on their old workarounds.

Like some other advertising startups, BlackArrow can also work with broadband video delivered over the internet. Its best advantage is in its proprietary hardware. The company doesn’t yet have any notable competitors, Denhart claimeed. Large companies like Microsoft, hungry for advertising dollars, are likely to pile in.

Cisco, another investor, has also been testing the company’s equipment. Other investors in the round include Intel, the Mayfield Fund and Polaris Venture Partners. The previous round of $5 million, taken in 2006, was led by Mayfield. The company has raised a total of $17 million. (We’re still trying to reconcile this with our original report that it had raised $14.75 million).

Yahoo is expected to announce tomorrow that it has agreed to acquire Rivals.com, an Web site focused on college and high school basketball, football and baseball.

The property, priced by unconfirmed reports at about $100 million, will be wrapped into Yahoo Sports, where it competes with ESPN.com, Foxsports.com and others. The New York Times has more details here.

Rivals, of Nashville, TN, had 1.4 million visitors in May, and was the 19th most visited sports site, according to comScore, but its audience has declined 14 percent from a year ago. Rivals.com said it had 185,000 subscribers who pay $100 a year, giving it about $18 million in annual revenue — making this a relatively small transaction.

Rivals had struggled over the years. After the bust in 2001, its assets were sold to AllianceSports, which took over its name. Rivals raised about $80 million in venture capital and other financing from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Intel, News Corp. and others.

Clearwire, the company that is building WiMax, a new wireless technology boosts the performance of wireless broadband, has raised $600 million in its initial public offering. It begins trading today.

Clearwire, of Kirkland, Wash., reported a net loss of $240 million last year, largely because it is building out its WiMax network, and has yet to start selling it. It remains a big risk. Sprint-Nextel plans to roll out a competing WiMax network next year, and there are many other competing offerings outside of WiMax.

WiMax differs from WiFi in that it has much longer ranges — as much as 10 miles vs. WiFi’s reach of a few hundred feet.

The IPO priced this morning at $25 a share, at the top of its planned range. The IPO is signficiant because the stock markets have been jittery lately, the Nasdaq having lost more than 6 percent of its worth since WiMax filed its IPO papers. Telecom IPOs have been rare. Clearwire’s biggest backers are Motorola ($300 million invested) and Intel ($600 million invested)