Nine new employees will support Actimagine’s Mobiclip video codec, whose compression technology is designed to display high-resolution video on mobile devices while reducing processor and battery requirements.
During the previous two months, the company had hired six people in France for engineering, marketing, and mobile-business systems. Two more engineering positions were planned by the end of the year. Actimagine also intended to move its headquarters to larger offices on Rue de Rivoli.
International business represented more than half of Actimagine’s revenue. The company appointed Henri Linde, associated with the commercial deployment of MP3 at Thomson, to lead US operations and planned to fill two engineering positions in Japan.
Actimagine said it had remained profitable since its founding in March 2003, with revenue of US$1.34 million in 2004 and US$5.2 million in 2006. It raised €3 million from GRP Partners in July 2006 and was preparing a larger second financing round.
Customers already included Fisher-Price, Sony Ericsson, Sony Pictures Digital, and Nintendo. Actimagine also reported that another handset manufacturer would use Mobiclip in forthcoming devices. Nokia planned to make the film Prête-moi ta main available on a SIM card for N-Series users from the following May, while expanding its catalogue of DVD-quality films for mobile devices.
Mobiclip was being positioned as a DVD-quality mobile-video standard. Actimagine had joined the Red Herring 100 North America list in April, received the Médaille de la Ville de Paris for job creation in June, and was nominated for an Entrepreneur of the Year award in the “Company of the Future” category.
“Video content on mobile devices has become a reality and supports consumers’ wish to use their phones for multimedia applications,” said Actimagine chief executive André Pagnac. He identified image and sound quality, battery life, ease of use, and varied content as factors in broader mobile-video adoption.
