Social TV startup Miso has been having a great fall. They’ve secured partnerships with two MSOs (DIRECTV and AT&T U-verse) and now they’ve added another $4 million in funding from Khosla Ventures to their original $2 million, which Google Ventures and Hearst Interactive Media participated in.
At the recent Social TV Summit, founder Somrat Niyogi continued to remind everyone that Miso is now more than just a check-in. For Showtime’s Dexter (their first launch partner last month) they synchronized, “interesting tidbits, facts, quotes, and more,” almost like an opt-in pop-up video for the show. They’re also, “delivering social TV solutions on the TV,” and “partnering with Facebook to make TV sharing even easier.”
Vinod Khosla (the Sun Microsystems co-founder and power VC) is placing his bets on Miso for social TV. “People are changing the way they watch television. They are also on their phones and tablets, and this creates new opportunities for innovation in the second screen space. We feel that Miso is leading the way.” Niyogi spoke with us about what they’re going to do with the new investment.
Lost Remote: What will the money be used towards?
Somrat Niyogi: Engineers and designers primarily. We are still in “building-mode” and having a flexible second screen platform is key to our longer term success.
LR: Any plans to expand into the global social TV world?
SN: Our users are global so in some ways we’re already there but there are on-going conversations with large international pay TV providers but there is nothing public to announce.
LR: Can you disclose any numbers from the MSO partnerships?
SN: We can’t share anything quite yet but the #’s are promising. We have some other major product announcements coming soon. 2012 is going to be the year where we’ll see true differentiation in the second screen space.