Montreal Tech Watch

Mediascrape has received a funding of $3.2 million, in a round led by Canadian investor Paradigm Capital. Previous to this funding, Mediascrape also took angel funding ($1 million announced in Sep last year).

Mediascrape’s main idea is to re-broadcast on the web live video feeds, taken from press agencies or major news broadcasters. It then allows users to “tune in” to any geographical region in the world and get video reports, with a 30-minute latency, the time necessary to translate the reports in english. Mediascrape’s added value is the maps functionnality as well as the translation of the reports in English. For users, it also means getting access to a wider array of news, and be able to choose news by topics and broacasters.

Mediascrape will be using the new funds to expand its product features and its business.

They will for instance allow its users to access the live raw video feeds, and voice-over, translate, or edit them, in the wiki way. This means essentially mediascrape users will have the same tools as the company. I am not sure what is the benefit for the user to do this, but I guess it’s a way for mediascrape to get additionnal languages, meta-information and more interesting content in a more “scalable” way.

Mediascrape will also announce a new partnership with Reuters — they are currently installing a 3,000 pound satellite receiver on their office roof to broadcast the Reuters 24/7 live raw breaking news feed.

Finally, they are also bringing in Chris Dingle as President and CTO. Chris Dingle was previously the founding CTO of 24/7 Real Media, sold last summer to WPP for $637 million.

There have been questions by a few industry observers, but I guess it’s mainly because nuvu.tv/mediascrape is not from your typical “web-native” people, but from an outsider who thought about addressing a need for diverse and hyper-local news.