Early history (2010–2016)
Philo was originally founded in 2010 as Tivli by Tuan Ho and Nicholas Krasney at Harvard University. It began as an experimental dorm-room streaming project using aluminium foil as a makeshift receiving antenna to "pick up (Boston area) TV signals and deliver them wirelessly to their laptops via a jerry-rigged server".[5] At its launch, the project was intended to be a way to provide a streaming TV service to Harvard University students living on campus. When the service first launched in 2011, a quarter of the Harvard resident population registered for it within the first few weeks of the service.
In 2011, Tivli joined the Harvard Innovation Lab (iLab) as the first company in residence, before finally moving into their own office in Harvard Square in 2013. In 2012, Christopher Thorpe joined as CEO to build out Philo's original university IPTV service. From the earliest days, Philo had aspirations to launch a nationwide streaming TV service, starting in universities. After launching services at Harvard, Philo quickly added additional universities such as Stanford University, Yale University, Texas A&M University, and Brown University.[6] In 2013, Philo announced a strategic partnership with HBO to provide the HBO GO service to universities. By September 2015, the service was available in 42 universities.[7]
In July 2013, the venture raised a $6.3 million round led by Patrick Chung at venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates. Among the Series A investors, were Mark Cuban from Radical Investments LP, HBO, Ari Emanuel from Endeavor, and Rho Capital Partners.[8][9] The same year the company was rebranded as Philo, from its former name, Tivli.[10][11]
In 2014, Andrew McCollum, a founding member of Facebook, succeeded Christopher Thorpe as CEO to further expand Philo beyond providing university IPTV services and launch a direct-to-consumer over-the-top streaming service called Philo.[12] After securing their Series B round in 2015, Philo relocated to San Francisco, California.[13]
In June 2015, Philo raised $10 million in a Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates, with joint investment from HBO, Rho Ventures, Xfund, CBC New Media Group, as well as Andrew McCollum.[14][15]
Recent history (2017–present)
Philo launched its OTT streaming television service in the United States on November 14, 2017. The service is available via TVs, digital media players, computers, tablets, and phones.[16][17] The service includes channels from A&E Networks, AMC Networks, Discovery, Inc. (prior to its 2022 merger with WarnerMedia to form Warner Bros. Discovery), and Viacom (prior to its 2019 reunion with CBS Corporation to form ViacomCBS, later known as Paramount Global and now Paramount Skydance), all of which also became joint owners of the service with a combined $25 million investment before this launch.[16]
