These are clearly not the easiest times to secure financing for a startup, but Boxee, which makes an open-source media center application that works on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and the Apple TV, just announced a $4 million investment from Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. Bijan Sabet from Spark and Fred Wilson from Union Square will join the Boxee board.
Boxee, which is still in private beta testing, is a media center solution that allows you to play back content from third-party providers like Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, or Last.fm through a very slick interface.
Of course, Boxee will also play back any videos, photos, or music files you have on your own computer or local network. Besides playing back media, Boxee also aggregates reviews from third-party websites and allows you to share your activity with your friends.
Open-Source on the Apple TV
Most of the hype around Boxee right now is due to the fact that it can be installed on an Apple TV, which greatly extends the functionality of these devices.
As Boxee is an open-source program, developers can easily extend the functionality of the application and develop plugins for it. Boxee’s back-end is based on the open-source xbmc media center project.
The Firefox of Media Centers
Fred Wilson calls Boxee the “Firefox of the media center software sector,” and judging from what we have seen of it so far, we would have to agree.
According to Boxee’s announcement, the company will use the additional funding to extend its user base and to extend the feature set of the software. Hopefully, this additional funding will also mean that we can soon see hardware with pre-installed versions of Boxee.
quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo
