The four partners will hold a minority interest in Joost, and the Financial Times reports that CBS parent Viacom also has some involvement in the funding, though the extent of it is unknown. The company's founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, have thus far funded the company (which was previously known as The Venice Project) with the proceeds of their sale of Skype to Ebay. The service launched officially last week after "a few hundred thousand" people had reportedly signed on to test a beta version

Friis said in the article that with the new funding Joost will be able to extend the service to "tens of millions, even hundreds of millions" of viewers.

"We've got the product out there. Now it's all about accelerating and expanding the business," [Friis] said. "This funding round is all about accelerating everything." ...

"The premise and the promise of Joost are very intriguing," said Roelof Botha, general partner at Sequoia. "It is rare to come across a business that has the potential to transform an industry in quite the way Joost has."