Amagi raises $100 mn from Accel, Premji Invest, others

Amagi, a cloud SaaS technology provider for broadcast and streaming television, has raised over $100 million from investors such as Accel, Avataar Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and existing investor Premji Invest.

As part of this transaction, the funds have also bought out stakes held by Emerald Media and Mayfield India. Nadathur Holdings continues as an existing investor. With this funding, the company has raised more than $150 million so far.

“Amagi will immensely benefit from the collective experience of Accel, Avataar, Norwest, and Premji Invest in rapidly scaling our business and expanding our global footprint,” said co-founder and CEO Baskar Subramanian. “Their deep understanding of B2B SaaS models will help us enhance value for our customers and partners. This will further nurture an entrepreneurial spirit in our employees, which is critical to building and embracing new technologies to solve complex business challenges.”

Founded in 2008 by Subramanian, Srinivasan KA and Srividhya Srinivasan, Amagi enables content owners to launch, distribute and monetise live linear channels on free-ad-supported television and video services platforms through a suite of solutions. It also provides 24×7 cloud broadcast and targeted advertising solutions to broadcast TV and streaming TV platforms. Amagi has presence in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, Singapore, broadcast operations in New Delhi, and an innovation centre in Bengaluru.

“Media companies are striving hard to maximise revenues and stay profitable amidst shifting consumer preferences. Amagi accurately gauged the direction of the industry transition almost a decade ago and successfully took to market pioneering cloud solutions to meet evolving media requirements. Building on the meaningful scale they already have, we are excited to actively support them, using our Operating VC model, to create the next global leader in the media-tech SaaS space,” said Nishant Rao, Founding Partner at Avataar Ventures.

The company claims to support over 500 content brands, over 800 channels including playouts and redundancies and overall 2,000 channel deliveries on its platform across more than 40 countries. Its clients include A+E Networks UK, beIN Sports, CuriosityStream, Discovery Networks, Fox Networks, Fremantle, Tastemade, Tegna, Vice Media, and Warner Media.

The firm said it has also developed deep technical integration with ad-supported platforms such as The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, Pluto TV, Plex, Redbox, STIRR, VIZIO, Xumo, and other top 30 video streaming platforms across markets like the United States, LatAm, Europe, and Asia.

“The global media and entertainment industry is poised for unprecedented growth. Amagi’s market-leading cloud-based technology is enabling content owners – big and small – to reach wider audiences, deliver personalized content, attract advertisers, and reduce cost of operations,” said Shekhar Kirani, partner, Accel.

Amagi said its revenues have grown by 136% for the fiscal ending March 2021, driven by a 44% year-on-year growth in new customers including brands such as NBCUniversal, USA Today, and ABS-CBN.

For the quarter ending June 2021, the company saw an 18 percent sequential rise in revenues, a 19 percent increase in customers and a 27 percent rise in ad impressions. The United States accounts for 74 percent of its revenues.

Amagi customers see an average 40 percent savings in operational cost as compared to traditional delivery models and some of its top customers have witnessed a 5-10x growth in ad impressions, the company said in a statement. Moneycontrol