Alibaba invests $50M in Peel, a US startup that makes apps for TV junkies

Alibaba the ecommerce firm might not be heading to the US anytime soon, but Alibaba the VC firm is making its presence well-known there. Recode just reported the company invested US$50 million in Peel, a Mountain View-based startup that makes a mobile app for the TV addicted.

Available for iOS and Android, Peel lets users control their televisions, DVRs, or satellite dishes through its mobile app. Recommendations, reviews, and other social features also come built in. We’ve never used it ourselves, but it looks like the sort of app that could pick up a following of loyal users, for whom the living room flatscreen trumps the laptop for movie watching. Peel CEO Thiru Arunachalam tells Recode that the app has 96 million users.

Arunachalam also told Recode that neither firm has plans to integrate Alibaba’s ecommerce or media ecosystem into Peel. That’s not a huge surprise given that Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba’s flagship business-to-consumer sites, operate firmly within the confines of planet China. However, there’s always the distant possibility of collaboration, especially given Alibaba’s commitment to its Smart TV OS.

Alibaba has made a string of investments in North American companies over the past year, perhaps most notably Tango, a runner-up messaging app that picked up US$215 million from the Chinese firm. None of the startups that received funding from Alibaba have aggressively pursued the Chinese market, however.

See: Here’s our roundup of Alibaba’s investments in US-based companies

(Source: Recode)