Ooyala (pronounced "oo-YAH-la") was a privately owned company focusing on video content
workflow management system A workflow management system (WfMS or WFMS) provides an infrastructure for the set-up, performance and monitoring of a defined sequence of tasks, arranged as a workflow application.
International standards
There are several international standards ...
s. It began in 2007 as a
venture-backed,
privately held company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...
founded by brothers
Bismarck Lepe
Bismarck Lepe is an information technology CEO and product manager. Lepe is the founder of Wizeline.
Prior to founding Ooyala with Sean Knapp (CTO) and Belsasar Lepe (Director of Engineering), Lepe worked at Google as a Senior Product Manager r ...
and Belsasar Lepe, and their colleague and friend from
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
, Sean Knapp. It was acquired by Australian Telecom giant
Telstra
Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...
in 2012, which sold it to Ooyala management in October 2018 writing off all its investment. In Feb 2019 Ooyala sold its OVP business to
Brightcove
Brightcove, Inc. () is a Boston, Massachusetts–based software company that produces an online video platform.
History
Brightcove was founded in 2004 by Jeremy Allaire, who served as Executive Chairman until April 2016, and Bob Mason. The co ...
.
In July 2019, Dalet, a provider of solutions and services for broadcasters and content professionals, acquired the Ooyala Flex Media Platform business. The asset deal included the Ooyala Flex Media Platform and brand, as well as Ooyala personnel across sales, marketing, engineering, professional services, and support.
The word ''ooyala'' means 'cradle' or 'swing' in
Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
or
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
(ఊయల).
Early history
In January 2007, Bismarck Lepe was working for Google. While developing new monetization techniques for
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
, he came up with the idea of using
computer vision techniques to deliver targeted advertising on TV shows recorded on
TiVo
TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...
. He contacted his brother Belasar and a friend, Sean Knapp, to discuss his idea.
In its first round of funding, Ooyala raised money from a number of
angel investors and businesspeople, including Scott Flanders, CEO of Playboy Enterprises; Tim Koogle, Former CEO of
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...
; and Oliver Grace, Kip Hagopian, Fred Warren, and
Ron Conway
Ronald Crawford Conway (born March 9, 1951) is an American venture capitalist and philanthropist. He has been described as one of Silicon Valley's " super angels".
Early career
Conway graduated from San Jose State University with a bachelor's d ...
. Eight months later, Ooyala raised an additional $8.5 million from Sierra Ventures.
By August 2009, Ooyala was providing video technology and services for over 500 companies under the direction of new CEO Jay Fulcher, formerly of
Agile,
PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft, Inc. is a company that provides human resource management systems (HRMS), Financial Management Solutions (FMS), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise performance management (EPM) software ...
, and
SAP
Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.
Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separ ...
.
Two more rounds of fund-raising followed in 2010 and 2011. Ooyala had raised $42 million from Sage Venture Partners, Sierra Ventures, Rembrandt Ventures, CID Group (a Shanghai-based private equity fund), Hitochu and
Panasonic
formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...
.
[Video Publishing Platform Ooyala Raises $22 Million, Prepares For Major Asian Expansion](_blank)
TechCrunch (2010-09-09). Retrieved on 2013-12-09.
In April 2019, the Online Video Platform business was sold to Brightcove. Ooyala focused all its business and GTM strategy on further growing the Ooyala Flex Media Platform, a content supply chain solution.
In July 2019, the Ooyala Flex Media Platform was acquired by Dalet.
Telstra subsidiary
In June, 2012,
Telstra
Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...
led a $35 million (USD) round of financing in Ooyala, and took a 5 percent stake in the company. It announced plans to use Ooyala’s software and services to deliver its television content online and, further, to resell it to other media companies and corporations. It invested a further $26m over intervening years before announcing on 1 October 2014 that it had acquired Ooyala with 98per cent ownership in a deal valued at $270m.
Under Telstra, Ooyala acquired European adtech provider, Videoplaza in 2014 and logistics and workflow software vendor, Nativ in 2015.
In 2016 Telstra wrote down the value of the company by $246m reflecting poor performance of the advertising technology part of the business. In February 2018 Telstra wrote down the rest of the value of the company, taking a $273m impairment, and pulled it from the advertising technology area to focus on its ongoing video platform and media logistics system.
In October 2018 Telstra sold video-streaming platform Ooyala the platform back to Ooyala management. Telstra originally acquired Ooyala for more than $500 million in 2012 and subsequently wrote down to a value of zero in February 2018.
Products
Ooyala initially focused on applying computer vision techniques to create
clickable
Point and click are the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse, usually the left button (''click''), or other pointing device. An example of point and cli ...
video. As the company grew, it expanded its scope to develop technologies that improve the quality and speed at which online video is delivered, and allow Web publishers to measure, monetize and optimize their video content. Its online video platform enables Web sites to publish, manage, monetize, and analyze online video content. It is built to be modular and provides real-time analysis capability to its customers. Its workflow management system is called Flex media logistics.
In 2010, the company deployed one of the first large-scale
Cassandra
Cassandra or Kassandra (; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, , also , and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be belie ...
clusters for its analytics and video transcoding services.
References
{{Reflist, 30em
Mass media companies