• by Ross Fadner , June 19, 2012

Ooyala, one of the more successful online video platform providers, on Monday announced $35 million in new capital in a Series E funding round led by Australian telecommunications giant Telstra, which now becomes an Ooyala client. The new round brings Ooyala’s total funding to $79 million.

Ooyala helps content owners publish and distribute video content across devices, in addition to measuring, monetizing, and optimizing that content.

As part of the deal, Telstra will become an Ooyala customer and reseller, marketing its offerings throughout its network of content owners in Australia. Telefonica and Yahoo Japan are two other major Ooyala resellers.

Ooyala technology will help power Telstra’s IPTV offerings across devices.

The company says it will use the new capital to strike more deals with multichannel TV operators and TV programmers -- particularly outside of the U.S. -- eyeing Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America. Over half of Ooyala’s business is outside of the U.S.

"The lines between online video and TV are blurring,” said Jay Fulcher, CEO of Ooyala. “Service operators everywhere are redefining their offerings for digital, multi-screen consumption. Ooyala has been the driving force the past few years, innovating and helping broadcasters and operators transition their business models to not only maintain but improve the economics of traditional television. 

"The industry is now standardizing around technology stacks that enable the future of IP-based distribution,” said Gary Traver, director of Telstra Media, who becomes a member of Ooyala’s board of advisors. “With Ooyala's robustness and focus on personalization and profitability, it is becoming the platform on which the next generation of large-scale deployments are built." 

Sierra Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners, CID Group, and other undisclosed strategic investors also participated in the funding round.