Skinkers raises £8m in second round

Corporate P2P Web broadcast firm Skinkers has inked a £8m ($16m) funding deal today from venture firms Acacia Capital, Spark Ventures and from Skinkers’ own management team. The cash will be used to further push and develop its peer-to-peer broadcasting system LiveStation and its news alerts services. This is the second-round of funding for the London-based firm which launched desktop alert services for news organisations and large corporations several years before RSS was widely adopted.

Its LiveStation technology was acquired from Microsoft as part of a “technology for equity” deal in June last year. Livestation is designed specifically to deliver uninterrupted live TV to large audiences at reduced costs using P2P. Skinkers plans to launch a trial with several UK and international broadcasters soon. Customers so far include Virgin Atlantic, the London Stock Exchange, the BBC, The Guardian and CNN.