May 20, 2019 08.38 Europe/London By Robert Briel Nenda, an up-and-coming Swedish company, is being launched with the aim of revolutionizing the B2B TV market with a streaming service for the hotel industry. The initiative is led by CEO Anders Hässel, who previously held a top job at Telenor, where he was responsible for content acquisition and strategy. The company has raised SEK5.5 million in a seed round from, among others, Björn Lifvergren (who becomes Chairman of the Board) and Carl Palmstierna (who joins the board). Björn Lifvergren has built up the company BTI Studios, a billion SEK company that delivers subtitling and dubbing to companies such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.Carl Palmstierna, former Partner in Goldman Sachs International and CEO of ABG Sundal Collier AB. He was also chairman of the board of QBrick. “The B2B market for TV has been neglected all over the world. Hotels in particular have not had the opportunity to offer their guests a worthwhile product. Their offering is based on old technology, difficult to navigate and, not least, has substandard content,” said says Anders Hässel, CEO and Co-founder. “‘A hotel experience’ is a well-known expression for a “better-than-home-feeling,” but the television experience in hotels is clearly worse than the one guests experience in their homes. Today’s technical solutions are also both expensive and complex for hotels to manage. Nenda offers an all-in-one service with everything from sports to movies, international news channels and pay-per-view. In addition, guests can see what they want when they want because there are both live and on demand channels. Our technical platform means that guests from all over the world can get subtitles and dubbing in their home language, and that hotels can connect the TV experience directly into the digital guest journey through integration into hotel systems.” “Today, 68% of all guests turn on the TV in the hotel room, but few find anything to watch. When we now bring OTT to the B2B world, we can offer a unique product, which suits hotels beautifully! We will connect the best and most innovative content providers with hotels that want to be able to offer the guests good content. We have global ambitions for all B2B segments, but we are initially launching in the Nordic region with a focus on hotels and then expanding into other geographical markets and business segments. In the Nordic region alone, there are over 320,000 hotel rooms, and globally just over 16 million! We are already in discussions with some of the largest hotel chains and there is a lot of interest. The programming networks need increased distribution and new flexible revenue streams – which fits our model hand in glove.” said Björn Lifvergren, Chairman of the Board. “I have many years of experience from supporting founders and building fast-growing technology companies such as the streaming companies Qbrick and Magine. I really believe in the initiative with a specific focus on B2B,” added Carl Palmstierna, board member. (On the picture from the left: Carl Palmstierna, Björn Lifvergren, Anders Hässel)
Swedish start-up Nenda has raised SEK5.5m ($570,000) in seed funding to launch a television streaming service for hotels. The service will offer hotels an all-in-one package of sport, movies, international news channels and pay-per-view, with live and on-demand channels. Nenda will initially launch it in the Nordic region, before expanding to other markets and business segments, said Nenda chairman, Bjorn Lifvergren.