Roku Secures $8 Million in Funding led by Globespan Capital Partners

Roku raises another $8 million

By Ryan Lawler

August 12, 2011: 07:15 PM ET

(gigaom.com) -- Roku has raised an additional $8 million, according to an SEC filing that appeared Friday. [hat tip to VentureBeat, which first reported the filing.] The round comes just a few weeks after Roku launched the latest version of its broadband set-top boxes, which in addition to streaming video, also features casual games.

The financing is listed as a Series D round in the filing and includes a few new names that haven’t previously been linked to the company. Roku CEO Anthony Wood, CFO Oliver Hutaff, and VP of business development Jim Funk and all named, as well as Shawn Carolan of Menlo Ventures, Daniel Leff of Globespan Capital Partners, BrightSign CEO Jeff Hastings and Google VP of Film and TV Entertainment Robert Kyncl. Previously, only Wood and Carolan had been listed on Roku SEC filings.

The most interesting name on the list is Kyncl, who is heading up Google’s efforts to attract film and TV content on Google’s YouTube video site, as well as content acquisition for its Google TV efforts. Kyncl was also formerly a member of the Netflix team that helped build the content library for its popular streaming service. It’s not clear whether Kyncl is involved as an individual investor or as a strategic partner attached to his current day job with Google.

Roku had sold more than a million devices by the end of last year. The company plans to increase that to 3 million by the end of 2011. That growth will be driven mostly by the product’s availability in retail stores like Best Buy,, as well as a wider consumer interest in streaming video to the TV.

It’s been two years since Roku has raised money. The last round, in 2009, was for $8.4 million and raised its total funding to about $24 million.