Delivery Agent Raises $25 Mil to Extend eCommerce Tech into Set-Top Boxes, Online Video, Mobile

Delivery Agent, a company that specializes in developing what it calls "shopping-enabled" entertainment (i.e. ecommerce marketplaces) for entertainment/media companies (note: it claims to have developed such services for over 125 major entertainment properties, including broadcast networks ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, as well as Discovery Communications, HBO, Showtime, A&E Television Networks, MTV Networks, Univision, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, The Weinstein Company, the Boston Celtics, and the Chicago Bulls), announced last week that it has raised $25 million in a Series D funding round that was led by new investor, Focus Ventures, and that also saw the participation of new investors, T-Venture, Coral Group and Ironwood Capital, as well as existing investors, Bessemer Venture Partners, Worldview Technology Partners and Cardinal Venture Capital.

The company, which has raised a total of $60 million to date, says that it plans to use the new funding 1) to expand internationally, by building its European customer base and providing its US-based customers with opportunities to sell to international markets, and 2) to extend its technology to "serve click-to-buy applications for online video, mobile and set-top boxes." According to a report in Tech Crunch, Delivery Agent founder and CEO, Mike Fitzsimmons, stated in an interview that the company will shortly deploy a solution with "a major cable operator" that will enable viewers to use their remotes to click to buy products they see on TV. "We launched the market for shopping-enabled entertainment when we made it possible for television viewers to go online and buy things related to their favorite shows," Fitzsimmons said in a prepared statement. "Today, as so much entertainment content becomes and is available on other platforms, our expanded commerce and marketing technology will make it possible for our entertainment partners to reach, influence and transact with audiences wherever and whenever they happen to be watching premium content, whether through their television, mobile phone, online video player or whatever else is next."