Leading Media SaaS Company Amagi Achieves Over 100% YoY Growth, Secures $95 million investment in a Unicorn Round
Buoyed by surging market demand for Amagi’s cloud solutions, Accel leads the financing round along with Norwest Venture Partners and Avataar Ventures
New York(16 Mar 2022)
Amagi, a global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV, today solidified its position as the most preferred media SaaS company with a new $95 million funding round followed by a 108% YoY growth in revenues. This financing round was led by Accel with participation from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Avataar Ventures.
This latest investment brings Amagi’s valuation to more than $1 billion, making it a unicorn and one of the highest-valued media tech companies worldwide. As video streaming booms, with a market opportunity of nearly $50 billion for cloud-led solutions, Amagi stands out as a leading technology provider with a complete suite of solutions. The company offers creation, distribution, and monetization of live, linear, and on-demand channels across cable, OTT, and CTV-led Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) platforms, worldwide.
“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,” said Baskar Subramanian, CEO & Co-founder, Amagi. “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.”
This funding will enable the company to accelerate business expansion, both in terms of Amagi's international footprint, as well as its product portfolio in the current media and entertainment (M&E) market. The company will increase sales and marketing by fivefold across the globe. Amagi will also explore allied and adjunct opportunities in the cloud and video market to deliver greater impact across the value chain, evaluating the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) opportunities that can contribute to revenue growth or add technology capabilities to product lines.
“As the most preferred media SaaS company in the world, Amagi is leading the booming M&E industry to greater heights of technological innovation and strategic growth,” said Shekhar Kirani, Partner, Accel. “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.”
Strong all-round performance powers Amagi to unicorn status
Driven by an impressive traction for Amagi’s cloud solutions, the company has demonstrated its market leadership in a large and rapidly growing CTV-led Free Ad-supported Streaming TV space. This has led to further investments from existing investors to power the next wave of growth.
Tremendous market demand for Amagi
As the streaming space sees unparalleled growth and skyrocketing consumer demand, the market has responded with an increased demand for Amagi and its products. Amagi’s traction in the market is illustrated by several impressive milestones, including:
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59% surge in customers onboarded in 2021.
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Marquee customers across every segment -- Large media conglomerates (NBCUniversal, Paramount, A+E Networks UK & more), Connected TV majors (Samsung TV Plus, Roku, VIZIO, LG Channels & more), Content owners (Tastemade, USA Today, AccuWeather & more) and leading OTT/FAST players (Fubo, STIRR, Redbox, Rakuten TV & more) have continued to place their trust in Amagi.
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112% YoY growth in ad impressions generated using Amagi’s dynamic ad insertion platform, Amagi THUNDERSTORM.
“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. “We believe Amagi is the leading media technology player, positioned to propel the market forward in the years to come," said Niren Shah, Managing Director and Head of India, Norwest Venture Partners.
“The media industry has been swept up in a content storm with consumers demanding high-quality, personalized content at faster-than-ever turnaround speeds,” said Nishant Rao, Founding Partner, Avataar Ventures. "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."
About Amagi
Amagi is a next-generation media technology company that provides cloud broadcast and targeted advertising solutions to broadcast TV and streaming TV platforms. Amagi enables content owners to launch, distribute and monetize live linear channels on Free Ad-supported Streaming TV and video services platforms. Amagi also offers 24x7 cloud managed services bringing simplicity, advanced automation, and transparency to the entire broadcast operations. Overall, Amagi supports 650+ content brands, 800+ playout chains and over 2000 channel deliveries on its platform in over 40 countries. Amagi has presence in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, Singapore, broadcast operations in New Delhi, and an innovation center in Bangalore.
About Accel
Accel is a global venture capital firm that is the first partner to exceptional teams everywhere, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, Crowdstrike, DJI, DocuSign, Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Freshworks, Jet, Pillpack, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, Swiggy, Tenable, UiPath, and Venmo are among the companies Accel has backed over the past 35+ years. We help ambitious entrepreneurs build iconic global businesses. For more, visit www.accel.com or www.twitter.com/accel.
About Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest is a leading venture and growth equity investment firm managing more than $12.5 billion in capital. Since our inception, we have invested in more than 650 companies and currently partner with over 200 companies in our venture and growth equity portfolio. The firm invests in early to late stage businesses across a wide range of sectors with a focus on consumer, enterprise, and healthcare. The Norwest team offers a deep network of connections, operating experience, and a wide range of impactful services to help CEOs and founders scale their businesses. Norwest has offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco, with subsidiaries in India and Israel. For more information, please visit nvp.com. Follow Norwest on Twitter @NorwestVP.
About Avataar Ventures
Avataar Ventures is India's first growth stage, Operational VC fund partnering actively with brilliant regional Tech-led B2B & SaaS startups to Re-invent, Scale & Transform them into successful, enduring global businesses. Fundamentally, we believe in the promise of India & South-East Asia becoming B2B product nations, building for the world!