Aereo Raises $38 Million Series B, Plans To Bring Its Streaming TV Service To 22 New Markets

If there’s been one big drawback to Aereo, it’s that the streaming television startup only offers its service to customers living within New York City’s five boroughs. As it turns out though, that won’t be the case for too much longer.

Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia announced earlier today that the company has locked up a cool $38 million in Series B finding (led by IAC and Highland Capital Partners), and plans to use it to bring the potentially disruptive service to an even wider audience.

Now that Aereo is flush with capital, its top brass is looking to take the service to 22 new markets starting in Spring 2013; here’s the full list of which lucky cities are slated to get the service.

Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Birmingham (AL), Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Madison (WI), Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence (RI), Raleigh-Durham (NC), Salt Lake City, Tampa, and Washington D.C.

In case you haven’t been keeping tabs on Aereo’s odyssey, the company relies on a slew of what it often refers to as “antenna/DVRs” that tune into live local television broadcasts (sorry, no tapping into another city’s programming) and make them available for viewing over the web or on mobile devices. It hasn’t been the easiest road to travel — a handful of broadcasters (think Fox, Univision, and PBS) filed a pair of copyright infringement suits against Aereo last March — but the company has been keen to put up the fight and this infusion of funds certainly couldn’t hurt.

Kanojia didn’t have much of say when it came to a hard launch timeline, nor did he note which of the new markets would go live first, but it’s a heartening turn of events for a company whose future seemed so questionable for a while. In the meantime, those of you who call one of the cities on that list home can add your name to the waiting list and pray for an invitation sooner rather than later.