Akimbo Secures $12 Million in Series-B Funding

Akimbo, a new company which is planning an SVOD service that will allow consumers with an ADSL or cable-modem connection to view Internet-based programming on their television sets, says it has secured $12 million in Series-B funding. The funding round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, one of whose partners, William R. Hearst III, former editor and publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, has joined Akimbo's board as chairman.

(note: the service aims to offer more than 20,000 hours of video, organized into 50 categories, such as independent films, foreign-language programming, health and fitness, sports, children's programming, and educational programming; it will require customers to purchase a special set-top box, dubbed the "Akimbo Player," that will be equipped with an 80GB hard drive, capable of storing around 200 hours of downloaded content)

(Note: the other board members are Akimbo CEO, Josh Goldman; Akimbo founder and executive vice president Steve Shannon; Sprout Group principal, Eduardo Briceno; Draper Fisher managing director, Andreas Stavropoulos; Zone Ventures managing director, Frank Creer; and independent investor, Jay Haynes.) Previous investors, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Sprout Group and Zone Ventures, also participated in the round. Akimbo's service is scheduled to launch later this summer.