Jigsee secures angel funding

Proprietary media delivery platform poised to accelerate mobile video adoption in emerging markets

Toronto, July 19th, 2010 – MaRS, a not-for-profit innovation centre, is proud to announce that one of its clients, Jigsee, has secured funding from a consortium of angel investors. The funding will allow Jigsee to commercialize and deploy its media delivery platform in India, where the mobile value added services market is expected to generate $2.7 billion this year. The Indian mobile market is the fastest growing in the world – there are currently over 600 million subscribers and that number is expected to reach 1 billion by 2014.

Jigsee has developed a proprietary platform that enables efficient, secure and reliable delivery of content to a wide selection of mobile phones. Its technology accommodates large user volumes while making efficient use of available network resources when streaming Videos-On-Demand (VODs). Jigsee plans to rapidly expand its presence to other emerging markets following its pilot deployment in India. Currently, the mobile industry in emerging countries is mired with challenges in congestion, low bandwidth and handset incompatibility.

“As an investor, I was impressed with Jigsee’s combination of market trend, partner traction and their experienced team,” says Graham Matthews, President and CEO of Upper Canada Ventures Inc. “They are at the front of an emerging wave related to channel partners. Most importantly, the Jigsee founders clearly show a vision and passion for their business and have a demonstrated track record of success,” says Matthews.

“Our technology makes significant strides in the way end-users in emerging markets are able to utilize their mobile phones. One of Jigsee’s competitive advantages in emerging markets is its ability to transform basic low-cost phones from simple calling gadgets into devices capable of receiving video of any length, whether it be live sporting events, educational courses or even Bollywood movies,” says Ray Newal, CEO of Jigsee. “We are also very proud to have MaRS working with us as a partner throughout this entire process. The MaRS advisors were able to help us identify key issues and solidify our market focus.”

Co-founders Ray Newal, former VP of Business Development and Content Acquisition at Yahoo! Canada, and Gordon Jekubik, former CFO of Microsoft Canada, became MaRS clients in 2009. “It’s a pleasure to work with companies with innovative technology focused on large growing mobile markets such as India,” says Krista Jones, Practice Lead for the MaRS Information Technology, Communications and Entertainment (ICE) practice. “Jigsee also brings an outstanding management team that has achieved an impressive amount of market traction through key partnerships in the Indian mobile market.”

About Jigsee
Jigsee (www.jigsee.com), located in Toronto, Ontario, is the leading provider of enterprise VOD solutions for Mobile Service Providers in emerging markets. Leveraging its proprietary rich media transport, Jigsee delivers long-form and live video content to common phones over the existing wireless infrastructure in markets such as India. Jigsee is currently deploying solutions with some of the world’s largest mobile content companies.

For more information about Jigsee, please contact:
Gordon Jekubik
T. 416-561-5065
E. gordon.jekubik@jigsee.com

About MaRS
MaRS Discovery District (www.marsdd.com) is a large scale, mission driven innovation centre located in Toronto and networked across Ontario, focused on building Canada’s next generation of technology companies. MaRS works closely with entrepreneurs to grow and scale their ventures into global market leaders in life sciences and health care, information, communications and entertainment technologies, cleantech, advanced materials and engineering, as well as innovative social purpose businesses.

For more information about MaRS, please contact:
Linda Quattrin
T. 416-673-8104
E. lquattrin@marsdd.com