VideoIQ's Series C Funding Examined

In February 2010, VideoIQ announced $6 Million in new funding [link no longer available]. This investment adds to the $18 Million invested in 2007 [link no longer available] and 2008 [link no longer available], after the company was spun out of GE Security. In a briefing, VideoIQ mentioned that the funding would be used for general growth of products, production and sales. VideoIQ reports they have not determined whether they will seek an additional round after this.

In the announcement, VideoIQ disclosed that they have approximately 500 partners/integrators worldwide and gained 220 new end-user customers in 2009. They characterized this as "dramatically expanded [their] customer base." Driving growth, they cited their iCVR product [link no longer available], an offering that combines a camera, video analytics, storage and VMS into a single appliance.

VideoIQ framed their growth as 'rapid' and higher than the industry average but declined to be more specific. VideoIQ noted that a positive sign is that existing investors participated in this round and rated this as a high performing investment.

Given the recent large investments that VideoIQ received and the small starting point, it would be surprising not to see sizable growth. As a point of comparison, intelligent video provider 3VR cited approximately 600 total customers in February 2009 (product launch in 2004). By contrast, on the VMS side, Milestone's annual growth is in the 5,000 to 10,000 customers per year. Milestone is a large IP video provider but still probably a mid-sized overall video surveillance supplier.

VideoIQ cited its growing VMS and monitoring partners. On the other hand, VideoIQ still lacks 3rd party integration for its on board storage (though it reports announcements should be made this year). Unless and until VideoIQ can gain support by leading VMS providers of its on-board storage, the fundamental value proposition of its iCVRs is materially constrained to their goal of providing built-in video recording. Without that, video recorded on VideoIQ iCVRs would require the use of VideoIQ's own VMS interface rather than integrated with the more common and preferred 3rd party VMS for larger scale deployments.

For background on VideoIQ's product performance, see our test results on their VideoIQ iCVR's video analytics.