Airplay gets $14M to merge TV football and mobile games

AirPlay, a San Francisco start-up that is taking live broadcasts of professional football games, and allowing cellphone users to see the broadcasts on their phone and play interactive games at the same time, said it has raised $14 million.

The investment is a second round from a combination of strategic investors and venture funds: Qualcomm, Motorola, and venture funds JK&B Capital, ONSET Ventures and Redpoint Ventures, all participated in the financing. It was led by JK&B.

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AirPlay also has a social networking component for its users, allowing them to play against each other via their cellphones. The company said it is about to unveil a platform that will make it easier for developers to build other games for AirPlay.

Concurrent with the funding, Ali Shadman a general partner at JK&B Capital joined the Board of Directors of AirPlay, the company said.

Here’s a description of what AirPlay does:

In March of this year, AirPlay announced its intention to transform television viewing from a passive activity to an immersive experience by allowing viewers to play along with their favorite live television programs from their mobile phones. In August, AirPlay delivered Emmys AirPlay Live from Sprint, which allowed viewers to predict winners and losers, view commentary and answer trivia questions during the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy® Awards on August 27. AirPlay’s flagship sports game, AirPlay Live Football, was unveiled to consumers in September. The highly-anticipated game enables football fans to make real-time game predictions from their phones during live broadcasts of this season’s professional football games — allowing the armchair quarterback to finally call the game.