Qik attracts Andreessen-Horowitz investment

Netscape veterans Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have thrown their financial support behind Qik, a mobile live-video service.

Qik's investment announcement on Tuesday comes roughly a month after the company debuted its public beta, with several new features designed to improve the service that allows people to stream live video from their cell phones onto the Internet, to such sites as YouTube, Mogulus, MySpace, Orkut, and Justin.tv.

Andreessen and Horowitz will also serve as board advisers on Qik.

"We are thrilled to have Marc and Ben involved in Qik, both as investors and advisers," Ramu Sunkara, Qik chief executive, said in a statement. "Marc is a true visionary and seasoned technology investor. He brings strong entrepreneurial and innovation experience to Qik. It is great to have them both on board to help us grow Qik and guide us on how we can change the way people communicate and share live experiences around the world."

Qik is the not the first time Andreessen and Horowitz have teamed up. In addition to their work together at Netscape, the pair also previously joined forces as co-founders of Internet hosting company Loudcloud.

Loudcloud launched an IPO in 2001 to a lukewarm reception. The company later changed its business model to an IT automation software company and re-named itself Opsware. Last year, the company was scooped up Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion.

Horowitz is now general manager of HP's Business Technology Organization unit, while Andreessen is co-founder of social networking platform Ning.com.

While Qik did not disclose the size of the Andreessen-Horowitz investment, other than to characterize it as "significant," competitor Upstream.tv raised $11.1 million in its first round of venture funding in April.

Other Qik investors include Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com chief executive; Arjun Gupta, founder and managing partner of Telesoft Partners; and George Garrick, chief executive of Jingle Networks.

[BjornCH]

Really interesting. I gotta say that there are others in this space that impress me more: Kyte and Next2Friends. Kyte has won the player battle hands down and Next2Friends has a leg up on all the others in terms of being truly live to web. That said, Qik has gotten the word out better than anyone.