Fastweb founder Silvio Scaglia is backing a new broadband television and on demand service known as Babelgum. Scaglia, who is still the Italian IPTV operator’s largest shareholder is investing €10 million in the new project that launches in London this week. His business partner is Erik Lumer who spent several years in strategy consulting for leading IT and Telecommunications companies both in Europe and in the United States
Babelgum will use peer-to-peer technology and will enter a test phase before the end of the month ahead of a full release later this year. The content will use professionally produced videos – putting it in competition with Joost – rather than relying on User Generated Content. However, Babelgum is looking towards the independent production sector rather than the big name brands favoured by Joost.
The company has offices in the UK and France.
