Innovative TV solution BeeTV fails, despite $10M raise

TV recommendation service BeeTV once had major buzz, now its sting will soon be gone

Here's a story showing that in the competitive world of start-ups, a great idea isn't enough. It's all about execution.

In 2009, BeeTV was getting all kinds of buzz (excuse the pun). It started out selling an innovative TV recommendation technology to cable companies but then moved into cosumer-based products. Unfortunately, both endeavors failed, and BeeTV is soon to go the way of the Dodo.

CEO Yanov Solnik told one news outlet this morning that the company would soon be closing its doors. VatorNews contacted Solnik, and he confirmed to us that, "Yes, BeeTV is closing its operations and putting all its assets on sale."

BeeTV debuted back in 2009, making a big splash with its TV recommendation tech, a system that collects data on a given user's television choices and creates a Personal Content Channel for the user. The company meant to implement their tech across cable, sattelite and Web platforms to create a kind of hybrid between sites like Pandora and Spotify and a TV DVR system.

BeeTV received $10 million of funding from Italian VC firm innogest, and created apps for the iPhone and iPad. The company had offices in Milan, Italy; Tel Aviv, Israel; and San Francisco, California. The man behind BeeTV's TV personalization tech, Gavin Potter, recieved some attention for his innovative algorithms.

In September 2011, the company launched a series of upgrades, including new 3D surfing user interface with an updated dashboard view, a Top Recommenders competition where people who recommend good unknown marterial received benefits, and 30 new WebTB sources including NBC.com and CBS.com.

When asked whether their apps would still be available, Solnik replied to VatorNews, "All our apps - iPhone, iPad & Web will stop working unless someone will buy the service and decide to continue servicing these apps."

Solnik also cited the unexpected death of one of the company's original co-founders as a major blow to the growth of the company. "Rodolfo Hecth, my partner and the main co founder died on [December 31, 2010]," said Solnik.

 "Rodolfo was both leading the company with his vision and was also very connected to top executives in the Telco/TV industry. His death was very tough on the personal level, but also impacted the company."

"[But] even before Rodolfo's death I was strongly pushing the company towards a consumer facing service (as opposed to the B2B approach) after experiencing the process of selling to a TV operator. I believed that the B2B model was not sustainable for a small start up."

BeeTV will be put up for sale, including its patented TV recommendation search engine and its TV-oriented social networking service, with iPad and iPhone readiness. Solnik has expressed hope to start a new company in the near future and plans to "keep trying."