Applicaster Raises $11 Million Funding
Applicaster, the global technology company simplifying the creation, delivery and management of OTT video applications, today announced it has secured $11 million to support continued technology and customer growth amid record demand for streaming content services.
The funding round is led by Viola Growth with participation from 83 North, Pitango, Saban Ventures, Planven Investments and La Maison. This latest round of financing brings Applicaster’s total raised to about $67 million. In March last year the groups invested $20 million in the company after it recorded 100 percent growth in annual recurring revenue.
"There has been a sea change in how we consume media, and in the past few months companies have looked to adapt direct-to-consumer app strategies to support this competitive OTT market," said Eran Westman, partner at Viola Growth, who is also on Applicaster’s board. "Applicaster is uniquely positioned to meet this historic demand by providing agile and flexible solutions for its clients. We believe the category will continue to grow as will Applicaster, with its flexible and robust platform."
Applicaster's SaaS app management platform, Zapp, simplifies the way media companies build, manage and distribute content, reducing costs and significantly shrinking time to market.
The company last month launched Zapp's newest framework, called Quick Brick, which streamlines the design, deployment and management of complex video apps across Android, iOS, Apple TV (tvOS), Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung and LG TVs. The new core framework not only simplifies app development by eliminating the need for coding the visual elements of OTT apps in multiple languages, it exponentially decreases time to market across all platforms and enables agile, iterative development of apps that can quickly adapt and respond to market requirements.
"There has been a fundamental shift in consumer viewing habits that is creating a fundamental shift for media companies. Mobile and connected TV apps have never been a bigger part of their business model than now," said Applicaster Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Laor. "Applicaster has always remained several steps ahead of industry growth and technological change. We're excited to continue working with content providers to ultimately ensure viewers are engaged and receptive. Applicaster’s speed and flexibility in reaching these audiences are key in adapting strategies to support this burgeoning market."
Applicaster works with a wide range of media companies and premium content providers, including DirectTV, Viacom, Prosieben, and Fox.
Delivering Personalized Customer Experiences
Increasing its own agility and responsiveness, Applicaster appointed company executive Devra Prywes to oversee Product and Marketing to remove silos to reflect a more integrated mandate for delivering personalized and innovative customer experiences.
This integrated approach reflects the company's focused mandate on global growth and customer experience. She now leads the overall business marketing strategy globally across all product lines, with a mission to transform marketing into a continuous growth driver for the organization.
Simultaneously, Applicaster is furthering investments in R&D and tech, with engineering being integrated under a unified Operations Group led by co-founder and CTO Neer Friedman.
[This is a slightly edited press release.]
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Applicaster runs a software-as-a-service platform called Zapp that lets content owners create and launch over-the-top D2C services and integrate media in third-party apps.
01 Apr 2019