By Ken Schachter

One day after Sen. Barack Obama announced his presidential bid on Brightcove, the Internet TV company announced Wednesday that it had completed its own campaign--a funding round that netted $59.5 million.

The Boston-based company is backed by an all-star team of the media and finance establishment. AllianceBernstein led the round, joined by Bain’s Brookside Capital unit, Maverick Capital, The New York Times Company and Transcosmos Investments. Existing investors Accel Partners, Allen & Company, AOL, General Catalyst Partners, The Hearst Corporation, and IAC/InterActiveCorp also took part. Three-year-old Brightcove lets producers plant video’s on the company’s site, specify terms of distribution and offer them for viewing on Brightcove and partner sites like AOL.

The funding will ensure Brightcove has staying power as it faces Google’s YouTube, an established Internet video hub, and startups like Joost, announced Wednesday by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Internet phone service Skype. A Brightcove executive said the funding will allow for expansion of the company’s services and geographical expansion into foreign markets.

“We think there’s a lot of opportunity outside the United States for Internet TV,” said Adam Berrey, Brightcove’s vice president of marketing and strategy. “We think this market will consolidate. It’s time for the leaders to emerge. This puts us in a good position.”

Though Mr. Berrey declined to comment on future plans, Brightcove did acquire Seattle-based Metastories, a service for publishing rich media that supplements video, in 2006. Like Brightcove, Metastories had a list of established media clients like Yahoo, MSN, USATODAY.com and Discovery Networks.

The latest round of financing is Brightcove’s third, adding to a $5.5 million A round and the $16.2 million the company snared in November 2005 in a round led by AOL. In the wake of that 2005 round, IAC/InterActiveCorp.’s chief executive, Barry Diller, joined the Brightcove board.

Investors in Cambridge, Mass.-based Brightcove pointed to the company’s ability to scale up as Internet TV gains an audience.

"Brightcove's early success in partnering with media companies that are driving the transition of television and video distribution to the Internet puts the company in the right position as Internet TV takes off on a broader scale," Jamie Kiggen, senior vice president of AllianceBernstein, said in a statement. "We've looked at many opportunities in this area and believe that Brightcove is well positioned for success in creating solutions that both media companies and consumers will embrace."

One of Brightcove’s partners is Dow Jones. Brightcove manages video across Dow Jones’ online properties Barron’s, MarketWatch and Wall Street Journal, while providing slots for advertising support. Another media partner, the Time Life unit of Time Warner, used Brightcove to support online sales of products like the complete DVD set of “Get Smart,” a 1960s TV show featuring an inept secret agent known for talking into his shoe.

With audiences increasingly drawn to Internet video, the sites of both Brightcove and YouTube are used by conventional filmmakers for marketing. On Wednesday, YouTube featured a trailer for “Pan’s Labyrinth,” while Brightcove had “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.”

Sen. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, has joined an increasing number of politicians in harnessing the Internet to reach voters directly. Online blogs and videos have become commonplace. Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont, for instance, used the medium to run a grassroots campaign that saw him edge out incumbent Joe Lieberman for the party’s nomination for U.S. Senate before losing in the general election where Lieberman ran as an independent.