ScreenCloud Launches $65 Hardware Digital Signage Player; Gets New Growth Funding Via Strategic Partner

April 9, 2025 by Dave Haynes

The UK-based CMS software firm ScreenCloud has developed and started marketing a new in-house hardware media player that goes at the same entry-level business Amazon is now chasing with its $100 Signage Stick.

The PIXI has a list price of just $65. It’s a little box that runs Android 14, supports 4K, and has 64 GB of onboard storage.

It is an intriguing development from ScreenCloud, given that it started out back in the mid 2010s offering a solution that worked on low-cost devices like Amazon Fire sticks, with its key market small to medium businesses. But then ScreenCloud, like many competitors, turned its focus to larger, enterprise business.

In a slightly curious twist, ScreenCloud is also an early adopter/partner of the Amazon Signage Stick ecosystem.

The PIXI, ScreenCloud says in PR, is intended as an alternative to another in-house hardware device, the Station P1 Pro.

“One of the most significant barriers to entry to the digital signage space for smaller businesses is a mixture of cost and ease of use,” says ScreenCloud CEO Mark McDermott. “We often have customers coming to us who love the simplicity of getting started with ScreenCloud versus other options. But it’s the media player where they face challenges. Choosing a budget option often means you sacrifice performance, or going for the higher-priced player might mean you sacrifice a screen placement or postpone it until later. With PIXI, we’ve packaged up the best specs we can offer and kept the price as low as possible to make the technology more accessible to more people.”

From PR:

Among PIXI’s offerings are features such as remote device management (RDM), which allows operators to connect to their devices remotely to troubleshoot or reboot them. This feature is key to avoiding the error screens or glitches that plague many digital signage displays – with notifications via the ScreenCloud dashboard and easy remote access meaning IT managers and content teams can quickly and easily fix issues without being on-site.

PIXI is running ScreenCloud’s own operating system built on Android 14, and also offers 64GB of onboard storage, 4GB of RAM and 4K display output. Media players with higher onboard storage and memory such as PIXI can cache their content, meaning fewer interruptions in the case of connection failures.

Users also get the benefits of ScreenCloud’s enterprise-grade security, 24/7 professional support and the extensive suite of design tools and app integrations.

With a list price of $65, PIXI is initially available to existing ScreenCloud trialists for $40/GB£35 at launch and will be made available to new and existing customers later in 2025. Even at the full list price, PIXI will be significantly cheaper than similar devices including the Raspberry Pi or Amazon’s latest offering, the Signage Stick. 

PIXI comes pre-loaded with ScreenCloud and is designed to be display-ready in minutes.

New financial backing

In separate news, ScreenCloud has announced what is described as a significant investment from European tech investor Tenzing, with the aim of making it “the number one brand leader in the digital signage category.”

The partnership with Tenzing will specifically enable:

• Advancement of AI technologies to simplify and automate content creation whilst making screen management more reliable, intuitive and impactful;
• Execution of our shared vision to elevate screens into powerful, transformative communication channels for businesses of all sizes;
• Exploration of strategic M&A opportunities with support from Tenzing’s acquisitions director and financial backing.

“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Tenzing. This partnership not only provides us with opportunities to explore M&A in the future, with their financial backing and expertise, but also aligns perfectly with our shared vision for the future of Digital Signage. Together with Tenzing we see a clear path to becoming the number one brand leader in our category and utilising AI to transform screens into a compelling communication channel for all businesses,” says McDermott.

Carl Lavin, Investment Lead at Tenzing, adds: “We are delighted to partner with Mark and the team at ScreenCloud. We have been drawn to the market-leading product offering run by a modern R&D function. We see many avenues for continued growth and look forward to sharing our knowledge of scaling European software firms to help ScreenCloud reach new heights.”

That last bit is interesting, as ScreenCloud is now one of those companies looking to acquire competitors or complementary tech firms, whereas I would have seen it more as a target because of its scale and particularly modern technology stack. It’s one of those companies that always seem to be on top of emerging tech for reasons well beyond the marketing buzziness of it – like some of the jazz hands stuff I see with AI support.