Clicker, a TV Guide-styled search engine for online video, raised $11 million in a second round of funding led by JAFCO Ventures. Earlier investors Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures also joined this round.
“This was not a need-based round of fundraising,” said Clicker chief executive Jim Lanzone. “This was an opportunity raise where we had a lot of inbound interest.” Lanzone said a number of funds competed to invest, although he wouldn’t say how many. Clicker’s overall funding is now $19 million.
The Los Angeles-based company indexes all available video online from Netflix movies and TV shows to Amazon film downloads. There are more than 600,000 TV episodes indexed online, all available as legal content. It lets you discover what’s available to watch and where to view it on the web.
It can be used like Tivo for the Internet. People can queue shows to watch, get season passes, and get alerts when new episodes show up online. Lanzone, a former chief executive at Ask.com says that the site now attracts 750,000 unique visitors a month after launching in November.
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“Our objective is to be the programming guide for the next generation of video viewers,” Lanzone said. “We’re not the place where you necessarily watch video. We’re heading into an era of exponentially more fragmented programming, and Clicker helps users by mapping out where to go.”
He said the business model for the site would center around sponsored listings and search-based advertising, although there are many other revenue ideas the company may experiment with.
“Search advertising is very congruent with the user experience and the way that Clicker is a doorway to programming, instead of a destination to watch it,” he said.
