French over-the-top TV platform Molotov announced that it has raised EUR 22 million as part of what it described as a second funding round, following a EUR 10 million round in 2014. The company said that the capital was raised from previous backers, including Idinvest, as well as new investors, including Sky and french infrastructure operator TDF. The news that Sky had participated to the founding round had emerged in September, when the company said it had made a EUR 4 million investment.
TDF confirmed that it had signed a strategic partnership with Molotov and acquired a minority stake in the company. Russian investor Mikhail Fridman has also taken part in the founding round with his company Letter One, Molotov CEO Jean-David Blanc told French news outlet BFM. He said the company aims to raise a total EUR 100 million in capital to finance the international expansion of the service, which is expected to start in the first half of 2017, focusing on Europe.
Molotov also announced the launch of a new feature to store programmes in the cloud for viewing later. Each customer can save up to 10 hours of programmes free, and this can be increased to 100 hours for a monthly fee of EUR 3.99. This works with most of the main channels, such as TF1, M6 and France Televisions, and Molotov said it aims to add others such as Canal Plus, NRJ and Arte next year. It also working on adding more catch-up TV from the main commercial broadcasters TF1 and M6.
Molotov launched in July in France, offering a free basic package of live TV channels similar to the DTT offering in France. Customers can add more channels and options for a monthly fee. The company said it had already reached "several hundreds of thousands" of users.
