Ooyala, the online video publishing and analytics firm acquired by Telstra earlier this year, is carving out an M&A path of its own after striking a deal to snap up Videoplaza, a company that specializes in video ad serving and programmatic advertising systems.
Ooyala’s acquisition follows other M&A action in the hot online video ad sector, such as Comcast’s recent purchase of Freewheel and Facebook’s of LiveRail.
Ooyala said the purchase of Videoplaza, a company that works with a range of broadcasters and media companies in Europe and the Asia Pacific region, will help it accelerate its entry into the video ad market as more viewing shifts from traditional TV to the Web and on mobile devices.
With Videoplaza, Ooyala said it will offer an expanded product portfolio that includes that will span content acquisition and workflow, playback, ad serving, programmatic trading, personalized content recommendation, and real-time analytics.
Videoplaza’s ad serving platform, Karbon, and its programmatic trading platform, Konnect, will be sold both in conjunction with, and separately from, Ooyala's video platform, the companies said.
Videoplaza’s customers include M6 (France) and IP Deutschland (Germany), TV4 (Sweden), Mediaset (Spain), STV (U.K.), MediaCorp (Asia), Sony Entertainment India and Singapore's Mediacorp. Ooyala clients include Telstra, Univision, Foxtel, Comedy Central, NBC Universal, Telstra, and Telegraph Media Group, among others.
"Our combined platforms will offer a more holistic view of content and ad performance across a broadcaster's entire business, including granular data on not only what, how and where people are watching, but also where and how they can make the most money," said Ooyala CEO Jay Fulcher, in a statement. “"Videoplaza's team has clearly demonstrated strong leadership in the fast-growing video advertising market, and are closely aligned with our vision for growth and innovation in this new line of business.”
"We are excited to join forces with Ooyala and Telstra. We share their vision and believe their strong appetite to invest for the long term in building a global market leader will set us apart. This acquisition will allow us to expand our mission in helping broadcasters and premium publishers build highly profitable and sustainable businesses,” added Videoplaza founder and CEO Sorosh Tavakoli, who has been tapped to head Ooyala’s video ad business line.
