Irvine, California-based connected TV startup Xumo is preparing for an international expansion this year: The company plans to launch in France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Brazil and Italy this year, CEO Colin Petrie-Norris told Variety on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Wednesday.
For its go-to-market strategy, the company will rely on its existing relationships with TV manufacturers, including LG, Vizio and Hisense. Xumo first partnered with LG in 2016, and has since been curating linear-like channels from video providers like NBC News, Bloomberg and TMZ.
These channels are displayed within the traditional programming guide of a LG TV, allowing viewers to seamlessly channel surf from broadcast TV to online video programming. An expansion to Europe is especially interesting for the company because of the strength of terrestrial broadcasting on the continent, said Petrie-Norris.
Many of the channels are compiled on the fly, with Xumo dynamically pulling videos and ads to create a lean-back experience. Petrie-Norris said that the company was making extensive use of algorithms to generate new programming every day, allowing the company to rely on just 3 editors for all of its channels.
In addition to being integrated into smart TVs made by LG and other vendors, Xumo is also operating its own apps, and powering some of the content ingested into the Roku Channel. Thanks to a growing catalog of Hollywood movies and other ad-supported content, the company has seen its per-device viewing metrics multiply by 4x last year, said Petrie-Norris: “Ad supported video has reached an inflection point.”