Online video startups pitched venture capitalists this afternoon at the Web Video Summit being held today and tomorrow in San Jose. Voddler CEO Jim Cantalini pitched VantagePoint Venture Partners' Duncan Davidson, ThinkEquityPartners' Anton Wahlman and Venrock's Eric Copeland.

I've summed up Cantalini's original pitch and some of the question and answer period dialogue. Some are quotes and others are my best attempt at paraphrasing. Cantalini started off badly complaining about how he was discouraged from using slides and that he wasn't given enough time. But, the Q&A with Davidson at the end was very entertaining.

Voddler - What if TV could offer you millions of titles instantly? This is what video is going to come to. We deliver video to consumer electronic devices over the open Internet. Competitive comparison is cable video on demand and PC video, but Voddler's bandwidth costs are 5% what others pay. Makes money from ads and it could be an attractive partner opportunity for content companies.

ThinkEquity: Do you have a deal with AT&T?
We don’t have a deal with AT&T but we could deploy our service on a Motorola box. We have a deal being discussed that I can’t talk about. The Motorola box is controlled by cable or telco companies.

ThinkEquity: How do you position this from Akimbo which has deals with AT&T?
We think content business changed after the Apple deal with ABC and Disney. Content partners are looking at multiple deals with partners. Content owner want to deliver content to the end user by cutting out as many middle men as possible which we think will benefit us in the long run.

Venrock: I’ve seen 5 or 6 companies talking along similar lines. Its hard for me to discount who will get key deals and get product shipping and get user adoption to back one in the peer to peer space. What do you think about competition?
Only competitive announcement we’ve seen is Joost saying they’re going to do it. Content owners will distribute to anyone where they have assurance they will get paid and content is secure.

Venrock: There can only be so many systems on a box?
True. Delivering content through a box because people don’t want more than one box in the living room.

Venrock: Can you upload to an existing box on the client?
Yes

VPVP: I think you’re solving a very big problem. Of the presenters we’ve seen so far this could be huge. As our firm looks at this segment, very few online video positions are sustainable. How do you avoid getting squeezed so that even though you’re there, you’re not making any money?
Benefit of distribution will give us an attractive posture.

VPVP: In the end do you become a CDN that sells to content people trying to get to box? Or another model where you make money?
See ourself as a delivery system with a storage content system. Positioned between both sides.

VPVP: Do you expect to get paid by content people?
We expect to get paid by advertising.

VPVP: Not going to charge content people to distribute?
No. We're going to work with big advertising people and networks.

VPVP: If you’re an ad network how do you get slot to put ad on top of content system? How do you get a deal where you can get some of the ad dollars?
In long tail of content there is no competition we’re dealing with because it’s archived and we will end up inserting it. Initially, we will not do user generated video though.

For more on the Web Video Summit, see:
Josh Wolf
Web Video Summit

Tags: voddler, webvideosummit, webvideosummit2007, video, vc, venture capital