Verizon leads $8M investment in Skyfire

Skyfire, a mobile web and video optimization company, completed a round of $8 million in Series C funding, bringing total investment in the firm to $30.8 million. Verizon (NYSE:VZ) Investments led the round, with current investors Matrix Partners, Trinity Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners also participating.

Skyfire is best known for its eponymous mobile web browser, available across the iOS and Android platforms. Skyfire for iPhone allows consumers to run Adobe Flash-based content, working around Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) restrictions on the Flash runtime by translating video content into the HTML5 web standard. The new Skyfire for iOS 4.0, launched in October 2011, introduces a video recommendations engine that suggests clips and live streams based on the content consumers are currently accessing.

Skyfire recently unveiled Rocket Optimizer, which leverages cloud technology to improve mobile video speeds while preventing data network congestion. "We can use the network to determine where congestion is and route all the video through our cloud adaptation engine," Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck told VentureBeat. "We're not trying to touch all the video going through a 4G network--we are looking for bottlenecks so we can intervene."

Skyfire is also in the process of developing Rocket Toolbar, a scrollable toolbar embedded into the phone's default browser that recommends content based on user preferences and behaviors as well as operator considerations. "The carrier can customize the default content on the toolbar, but it's very important for the user to fully customize the toolbar, download any app they want or even turn it off," Glueck said. Rocket Toolbar is slated to launch in late 2012.

The new funding round will support Skyfire's efforts to increase its engineering and sales efforts. The firm also plans to expand into the European and Asian markets.

For more:
- read this VentureBeat article

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