Synamedia sets out corporate vision, strategy and investment focus

LONDON and IBC stand 1.A71 – September 14th, 2018 – Synamedia, the new company that will be formed from the sale of Cisco’s video processing and video solutions business to private equity firm Permira funds today revealed its vision and investment focus as an independent entity.

Building on a market leadership position and the executive team’s industry track record, Synamedia is putting innovation at the heart of its strategy. The firm’s investment strategy will help customers: optimize their current infrastructure while adopting broadcast-grade IP distribution to boost consumer choice and convenience; secure revenue streams; and develop new offerings.

A priority will be research and development into new approaches to combat illegal streaming and protect revenue streams that will transform the way the industry tackles this growing problem. Although viewers are consuming more TV and video content than ever before, piracy can decimate operators’ revenues. Drawing on a 30-year heritage in content protection and relationships with other cybersecurity firms, Synamedia will bring to market products and services that go beyond watermarking to help customers with piracy prevention, rapid detection and response.

For example, Parks Associates estimates that losses from credentials sharing will cost the pay-TV industry $9.9 billion by 2021. At this year’s IBC, visitors can see a demo of a solution for the prevention of credentials sharing, one element in its upcoming data analytics services portfolio.

With the goal of helping customers build new revenue streams with ad agencies and brands, Synamedia will also be investing R&D effort on the technology underpinning targeted advertising, including both live and on demand services such as cloud DVRs. While the technology brings new opportunities for customers across all sectors, Synamedia believes this will be particularly attractive to free-to-air TV broadcasters and channels aiming to increase their revenue by offering OTT services including live streaming, catch-up TV and cloud DVR.

Synamedia’s upcoming boost to Evo middleware investment, combined with support for Android TV and RDK within its Infinite Video Platform, will allow customers to select the option best suited to their strategy.

As an independent company, Synamedia will forge partnerships with best-of-breed data analytics firms, network equipment providers and application developers supporting Synamedia Infinite Video Platform. It also plans to expand its professional services offerings to meet demand from existing clients looking to enhance their platform with features that meet their local needs. Synamedia believes these initiatives will result in the richest and most flexible hybrid broadcast OTT platform in the market.

The company believes Cloud DVR and the Infinite Video Platform will help grow its customer base. While Infinite Video Platform is being deployed on DTH, cable and IPTV, Synamedia plans to ensure it supports Android TV and RDK as well as any type of companion device including games consoles and connected TVs. It will focus on new ways of enhancing the user experience as well as improving the quality of experience with multicast ABR streaming and broadcast-equivalent streaming latency.

While Cloud DVR already supports 10 millions subscribers each week, Synamedia will be expanding its cost-effective cloud DVR solution with support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments and will work on developing a fully-managed service.

“We are looking forward to helping our DTH and cable customers embrace IP distribution to complement and expand consumer choice and convenience, as well as helping telco customers and new entrants to pay-TV take advantage of our end-to-end platform offering. At this pivotal time in the industry when the market faces a number of challenges, we will work with our customers and partners to reinvent the way people are entertained and informed,” said Yves Padrines, incoming CEO for Synamedia and currently vice president of Global Service Provider for Europe, Middle East, Africa at Cisco.

“I’m particularly excited about our plans to help customers secure their revenues and enhance the consumer experience by taking advantage of the convenience of OTT technologies. We will be starting with a robust and secure platform and will further develop our security offerings to tackle illegal streaming. In addition, we will leverage our expertise in targeted advertising to enable our clients to create new revenue streams,” said Dr. Abe Peled, Chairman of Synamedia.

For further information, please contact:
Rachel Postlethwaite
Breakaway Communications
+44 7949 883636
[email protected]

Note to Editors:
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of Cisco’s FY19, subject to any regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

About Synamedia

As an independent business, Synamedia is committed to providing the world’s most complete, secure and advanced end-to-end open video delivery solution. Building on more than 30 years of expertise, the firm will be the largest global provider of video solutions, trusted by dozens of top satellite DTH, cable, telco and OTT operators, content owners and broadcasters. Its technologies are deployed at one in three of pay-TV households worldwide.

Headquartered in London, with over 2,000 employees located primarily in US, Canada, UK, Belgium, Israel, India and China, Synamedia will be the only vendor with a portfolio of offerings across the video experience including middleware, video
security, cloud video recording, video processing, and video distribution. It will own more than 250 US patents and more than 340 non-US counterpart patents. Twitter: @synamedia360

About Permira

Permira is a global investment firm. Founded in 1985, the firm advises funds with a total committed capital of approximately €33bn and makes long-term investments in companies with the objective of transforming their performance and driving sustainable growth. The Permira funds have made over 250 private equity investments in five key sectors: Consumer, Technology, Industrials, Healthcare and Financial Services.

The Permira funds have a long track record of successfully investing in technology companies around the world including Allegro, Ancestry.com, Genesys, Informatica, LegalZoom.com, Magento, NDS, Renaissance Learning, TeamViewer, Teraco and others. Permira employs over 200 people in 14 offices across Europe, North America and Asia.