In June 2018, it became public that Samba TV is planning a cryptocurrency to provide its users incentives for sharing their data. Samba TV was incorporated as Free Stream Media Corp. in 2008, a company founded by Ashwin Navin, David Harrison, Alvir Navin, Omar Zennadi and Todd Johnson. According to the public source code repository, Flingo's open source client was written by David Harrison and Omar Zennadi in Python, and is free software licensed under the GPL. In February 2012, Flingo announced a $7 million Series A round investment from August Capital. In May 2012, Flingo added additional investors, closing at $8 million, including entrepreneur Mark Cuban and Gary Lauder. Cuban discovered Flingo at CES 2012 when he saw a crowd in the Flingo booth watching a demonstration of its SyncApps technology. The funding helped Flingo expand its presence with smart TV and device manufacturers, building on its existing partnerships. In April 2015, Interpublic Group announced a strategic investment in Samba TV. Subsequently, Samba TV announced more strategic investors totaling $30 million in a Series B round coming from Liberty Global, Disney, Warner Media, Interpublic Group, MDC Partners, A+E Networks and Union Grove Venture Partners.