Brightcove has appointed technology industry leader and entrepreneur Hisashige Hashimoto as general manager of Brightcove KK, Brightcove's Japan-based subsidiary. It was also announced that Web TV distribution giant, PRESENTCAST selected the Brightcove Internet video platform for gorin.jp, the exclusive online video portal in Japan for coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. gorin.jp is backed by all of Japan's commercial television broadcasters.

As general manager, Mr. Hashimoto will lead Brightcove's operations in Japan and drive overall customer acquisition efforts targeted at Japanese media companies and marketers. Mr. Hashimoto joins Brightcove after two years as president and chief executive officer of Paygent, a mobile auction escrow service he launched in 2006 and grew to 2,000 customers before leaving in 2008. Prior to Paygent, Mr. Hashimoto worked in three different senior management positions for Macromedia KK, helping lead the Education, Channel Marketing, and Platform Product Marketing divisions. Before Macromedia KK, Mr. Hashimoto spent 14 years with Mitsui & Co., Ltd.

PRESENTCAST, a joint venture formed in 2006 by leading television broadcasters and advertising agencies in Japan, will tap Brightcove as its Internet video platform for gorin.jp, the official website providing exclusive online video content in Japan from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. PRESENTCAST will program and distribute more than 200 advertising-supported video segments from the Games available online at gorin.jp from August 6 to September 23, 2008.

Financing officially closed for Brightcove's majority-owned subsidiary in Japan on July 18. On that date the entity was formally established in Japan with investments of $4.9 million from Dentsu, Inc., J-Stream, Inc., transcosmos, Inc., and Cyber Communications.