Sometimes TV can keep you on the edge of your seat — whether it’s a dark drama like Breaking Bad that makes your palms sweaty or a true crime series that has you double checking the locks on your doors.
But on the other end of the spectrum, TV can also be passive, something you put on in the background for aesthetics. That’s the kind of TV that Atmosphere aims to provide.
Atmosphere is a streaming service that specializes in “ambient” TV. For example, its Deep Sky TV channel features relaxing outer space videos from NASA, while its Companion TV channel shows videos of adorable animals. It also has some more high-octane content, like its Alpine TV ski channel and its Motiv8 TV workout inspiration channel.
The company’s goal is to create video content that can be watched passively in businesses, gyms, waiting rooms and so on, where viewers can tune in or out without really missing anything and audio is optional. Now, the company is picking up some momentum.
On Thursday, Atmosphere announced it raised an additional $5 million investment from Valor Siren Ventures. This closes the company’s Series A round at $14 million.
“TV programming for businesses is broken and expensive,” Leo Resig, Atmosphere’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We are boldly defining the streaming TV-for-business category. By designing streaming content and features focused on retail businesses, Atmosphere is meeting the needs of two underserved markets: businesses looking for free, audio-optional TV programming, and advertisers that have never been able to effectively buy television media to reach a targeted out-of-home audience.”
The company brings up the point that, while Disney, Hulu, Netflix and other streaming services are competing for people’s attention in their living room, Atmosphere is one of the only streaming companies focusing on out-of-home viewing. This new funding will help the company expand further into that space.
Atmosphere is currently streaming on 8,000 TVs in businesses of all kinds, playing for a collective 135,000 hours per day. Atmosphere’s network has grown by 2.5x since the beginning of 2019, adding about 800 customers per month.
