VentureWire Highlights New Deca.tv Content Partners

November 15, 2007

Venture-backed Deca.tv, a digital entertainment studio attempting to bring together the best of Hollywood, Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley, has announced partnerships with several well-known Internet properties and programming producers.

With the successful launch of Boing Boing TV, their first digital entertainment property, the company has secured programming partnerships with Peter Rojas, the co-founder and editorial director of Engadget, a blog with daily coverage of gadgets, consumer electronics and personal technology; Alex Albrecht, co-host of popular online video site DiggNation; Larry Lyttle, president of Big Ticket Television, which has produced eleven series including "Judge Judy," "Judge Joe Brown," "Moesha," "The Parkers" and "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment"; and SuicideGirls, an online community of alternative pin-up photography.

The new offerings will be launched in early 2008.

DECA is also behind "Dog & Pony," a daily video interview show with business innovators that is distributed by CNET.

Neil Sequeira, partner at General Catalyst and member of Deca's board of directors, said the partnership agreements are an early validation for the start-up.

"It brings credibility to whatever you're doing," Sequeira said. "If you have the Engadget guy and you're distributing on CNET, you're going to attract big advertisers. The value of these partners is this sense that we're starting something good immediately out of the gate."

Santa Monica, Calif.-based Deca identifies, funds, markets and distributes next-generation digital entertainment properties, bridging the gap between an old studio model and the growth of online content.

Sequeira said Deca was the missing content component in their portfolio of digital media companies. The firm also backs online video distribution company Brightcove Inc. and broadband media software company Maven Networks Inc.

"I think we have one of the best portfolios in digital media," Sequeira said. "We took a holistic approach to investing in the value chain of online media. At the end of the day, content is important and that's the reason we thought this investment was exciting."

Mayfield Fund led Deca's recent $5 million Series A with participation from General Catalyst Partners and Atomico Investments.