The Fox Corporation (FOX) and Eluvio have announced that FOX has made “a strategic investment in Eluvio to accelerate the adoption of Eluvio’s platform across the broader media and entertainment industry.” Eluvio is a global pioneer for the managing of, distributing of, and monetizing of premium content via blockchain. Both companies also announced that as part of the investment, Eluvio “will provide the underlying technology platform for Blockchain Creative Labs, FOX Entertainment’s and Bento Box Entertainment’s recently launched NFT business and creative unit.”
Paul Cheesbrough, Chief Technology Officer and President of Digital for Fox Corporation who is joining Eluvio’s Board of Directors noted, “At FOX, we believe that the blockchain, and the overall shift towards a more decentralized web, is providing creators with a wealth of opportunities to reach consumers with exciting new experiences. Michelle, Serban and the Eluvio team are the best in the business when it comes to the software and scalable infrastructure required to power live, decentralized experiences across the blockchain and our investment will help bring this technology to a wider market of content creators, media partners and advertising clients.”
As part of the investment, Eluvio will provide the underlying technology platform for Blockchain Creative Labs. That non-fungible token (NFT) business and creative unit was launched last May as a joint venture of Fox Ent. and Bento Box Entertainment. Dan Harmon’s upcoming animated series Krapopolis has been announced as the platform’s first project.
Eluvio was launched in 2019 and is led by the Emmy Award-winning technologists Michelle Munson and Serban Simu. The company’s “Eluvio Content Fabric is an advanced, open protocol blockchain network purpose-built for owner-controlled storage, distribution, and monetization of digital content at scale.” It provides “live and file-based content publishing, transcoding, packaging, sequencing, dynamic and static distribution, and minting of derivative NFTs–all backed by blockchain contracts providing proof of ownership and access control.” Eluvio LIVE, which is powered by Eluvio Content Fabric, provides 4K streaming and the ticketing of events with media marketplaces. FOX’s investment completes Eluvio’s Series A round at a valuation of $100 million.
Eluvio was selected by Blockchain Labs due to its low environmental impact. The Eluvio Cotnent Fabric “does not make file copies and dramatically reduces the storage, network requirements, and latencies of traditional digital distribution systems” due to a “novel compositional and just-in-time protocol.” The Eluvio Content Fabric’s “blockchain avoids the computational energy consumption, and costs, of proof-of-work blockchains through its efficient proof-of-authority consensus and seamless combination of on and off chain transactions.”
