Amagi, a cloud SaaS technology provider for broadcast and streaming television, is the latest entrant to India's growing startup unicorn club, with a $95 million fundraise led by Accel.
Existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Avataar Ventures also participated in the round. A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at a billion dollars or more. This fundraise brings the company's total financing to more than $245 million to date.
The funding will enable the company to accelerate business expansion across multiple geographies and its product portfolio in the media and entertainment (M&E) market.
“This is a crucial juncture for our business as we look to hit a hyper growth trajectory by creating a winning combination of goals, processes, team structures and more,” CEO and co-founder Baskar Subramanian said.
This investment comes on the back of a 59% surge in new customers in 2021 that resulted in a 112% year-on-year growth in ad impressions (through its dynamic ad insertion platform) and a 108% year-on-year revenue growth, the company said.
Its clients include large media conglomerates such as NBCUniversal, Paramount, A+E Networks UK, Connected TV players such as Samsung TV Plus, Roku, Vizio, and LG Channels, content owners such as Tastemade, USA Today, and AccuWeather and streaming platforms such as Fubo, STIRR, Redbox, and Rakuten TV among others.
"Amagi has enabled major media players to stay relevant in these times of change, while helping them to extract nearly 40% operational savings through cloud solutions. Avataar's operating VC model will actively support the very talented Amagi team to navigate this hyper-growth journey as a global leader" said Nishant Rao, Founding Partner, Avataar Ventures.
Going forward, Amagi said it would also explore "allied and adjunct opportunities" in the cloud and video market to go deeper "across the value chain" as well as evaluate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) opportunities, which can contribute to its revenue growth or add technology capabilities to its product lines.
The company aims to increase its sales and marketing efforts fivefold across the world.
“Our investors have a known history of crafting the success stories of companies with the promise of potential. We look forward to leveraging their astute understanding of the B2B SaaS landscape to successfully navigate the market intricacies and position ourselves for sustained success in the coming years,” Subramanian said.
Also Read: India is 18 months away from fundamental change in online video advertising: Amagi co-founder
Amagi is the 12th startup to join India's unicorn club this year that comprises of companies such as Mamaearth, Fractal Analytics, Darwinbox, ElasticRun, Hasura, and CredAvenue.
The investment also comes nearly six months after the company raised $100 million from investors such as Accel, Avataar Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Premji Invest.
As part of that transaction, the funds had bought out stakes held by early investors Emerald Media and Mayfield India. Mayfield India got a 14x return on their investments while Emerald Media got about 3x returns, Subramanian said in an interview with Moneycontrol last year.
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 24x7 cloud broadcast and targeted advertising solutions to broadcast TV and streaming TV platforms.
“Amagi’s impressive momentum is a direct result of its cutting-edge products, superior customer experience and talented leadership. We are thrilled to help fuel the company’s long-term success,” Shekhar Kirani, Partner, Accel.
Amagi claims to support over 650 content brands, over 800 channels including playouts and redundancies and overall 2,000 channel deliveries on its platform across more than 40 countries.
It has a presence in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, Singapore, broadcast operations in New Delhi, and an innovation centre in Bengaluru.
“The streaming market is ripe for technologies and innovations that improve how content owners, video platforms and advertisers engage with customers—and capture customer loyalty,” said Dave Zilberman, General Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
