TV makers need to get more lifetime value from a customer after selling a unit. With more competition in the market, companies often need to sell TVs at a discounted price with lower margins. The best way for them to recover the money is by striking partnerships with channels, streaming services, and advertisers.
This is the core thesis around Barcelona-based Titan OS, which provides a smart TV operating system to TV makers with a promise to get better lifetime value out of the customer.
The company said today it has raised €50 million ($58 million) in Series A funding, led by Highland Europe, with participation from Mangrove Capital Partners. The company didn’t specify how much money it has raised to date, but said that its seed round, raised in 2023, was in double-digit millions.
The startup was founded in 2023 by Jacinto Roca, Timothy Edwards, Miquel Barba, and Tobias Pfalzgraff. Roca previously founded a streaming startup called Wukai.tv and sold it to Rakuten. Other co-founders have also held various roles at Rakuten.
Jacinto Roca Image Credits: Titan OS
Titan OS now serves 18 million users, largely across Europe and Latin America, via partnerships with Phillips and JVC.
The software is designed to help users discover content easily, as Nielsen said in 2023 that the time spent trying to find content to watch has increased. Titan OS aims to use data insights from users and its vast content portfolio to reduce that time. Across the OS, users have access to a mix of broadcast TV, streaming apps that they subscribe to, along with FAST (free ad-supported television) channels from Titan OS’s partners.
For the company, revenue opportunity lies in a few key areas. First, it partners with many FAST services to help them reach the local audience. Second, there are advertising opportunities on the home screen of the TV and during streams that reach millions of users. The company said its content partners are eager to reach new audiences through advertising, especially event-heavy content channels that show sports.
Titan OS also offers shoppable ads that have customers perform actions like scanning a QR code to buy an item. The startup said that through these areas, it has grown 10x in revenue in two years.
While TV makers like Sony might not shed their core operating system, they are keen to partner with companies like Titan OS to offer more FAST channels to their customers. Multiple reports suggest that for TV makers, advertising is becoming a more lucrative revenue-earning option than hardware itself. Titan OS COO Edwards buys into this ethos.
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