London’s video streaming optimisation platform iSize raises $6.3 million, takes on environmental impact

London-based deep tech company iSize has raised $6.3 million in a round led by Octopus Ventures with participation from existing investors including TD Veen and former Google CFO and current Chairman of the Board at Twitter, Patrick Pichette. This now brings the company’s total raise to $8.2 million.

iSize is reporting that the funding will be used to further accelerate its traction in the US, and bolster the technical team and patent portfolio.

“Consumer demand for high-quality video is only going to increase as our devices are upgraded, so it’s vital that we find new ways to reduce the environmental impact. We are very familiar with this space having been an investor in Magic Pony and Sergio is one of those visionary founders who we believe can build something truly special,” comments Octopus Ventures’ Simon King.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, video streaming has exploded. Interdigital forecasts that by 2022, 82% of total internet traffic will be consumed by streaming. That’s a lot of servers serving a lot of video and consuming a lot of electricity in the process. So much so, that it’s estimated that the activity accounts for 1% of global CO2 emissions.

iSize is looking to tackle two problems in one go: reduce the bitrate requirements for delivering high-quality video, while at the same time, cutting down the amount of juice required to do it.

“Today there are more people streaming more video than ever before. Our customers recognise both the commercial opportunity and their social responsibility to optimise their video delivery pipelines with our pioneering technology,” comments iSize CEO Sergio Grce.

iSize’s chief product offering is a deep perceptual optimiser that has been trained to “see with the human eye” and delivers optimised video quality with a significantly reduced bitrate. The technology is platform agnostic and has applications in Video on Demand, live streaming, gaming and IoT and is compliant with all video encoding standards including AVC, HEVC, and AV1.