Widevine Technologies Announces $11.5 Million in Funding

Widevine Technologies (http://www.widevine.com), formerly known as Internet Direct Media, is a newly formed company, which will sell value-added technologies for streaming media. The company announced today that it has received an initial investment of $11.5 million and confirmed its core management team. The management team is made up of a number of senior managers joining Widevine from companies such as AT&T, Microsoft, Apple, RealNetworks and Rivals.com.

Widevine Technologies will soon be releasing their Widevine Cypher product to market. This product is designed to provide client-side security for streams independent of the platform. Widevine Cypher is based on a new architecture that performs encryption of streaming media in the network bridge rather than on the server. Widevine believes that the benefit to their solution lies in the fact that the client can choose any player they like, and broadcasters do not need any additional software or servers to ensure the security of their stream.

The company's key strategic investors including Constellation Ventures, Charter Ventures, The Phoenix Partners and several angel investors including Lorenzo DiBonaventura, President of Worldwide Distribution for Warner Brothers; David Erickson, Head of Internet Capital Markets for Lehman Brothers; and Israel Hernandez, Chief Analyst for Streaming Media for Lehman Brothers.