.com Dish

Joost, the Web online entertainment site that stole YouTube’s thunder last winter by scoring the Viacom content library, has raised $45 million from Sequioa Capital, Index Ventures, Hong Kong magnate Li Ka-shing, and the CBS television network. Sequioa has previously funded Yahoo, Google and YouTube.

The Financial Times reports that the four partners will hold a minority interest in Joost. CBS parent Viacom is also rumored to be involved in the funding.

Joost founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, had funded their startup from the proceeds of Ebay’s purchase of their other successful business Skype (VOIP).

“The premise and the promise of Joost are very intriguing,” said Roelof Botha, general partner at Sequoia. “It is rare to come across a business that has the potential to transform an industry in quite the way Joost has.”

The new funding will allow Joost to extend its service from the “few hundred thousand beta subscribers to “tens of millions, even hundreds of millions” of viewers.

“We’ve got the product out there. Now it’s all about accelerating and expanding the business,” says Janus Friis. “This funding round is all about accelerating everything.”