VIDEO TECHNOLOGY: MultiTV brings video ERP solutions for OTT platforms, virtual events

The explosion of live streaming, online gaming, ed-tech, health tech, retail commerce has created a huge market for video technology. No wonder then that Gurgaon-based MultiTV has emerged as a fast growing video platform player, offering virtual events, live streaming, OTT video tech platform and complete video tech stack for all business video needs.

“We have been adding customers at a rate of two customers a day since July this year,” says Vikash Samota, founder & CEO, MultiTV. “Video requirements are consistently increasing across enterprises, media and telecom, sports and events, and retail and brands. These are the four verticals which we are sharply focusing on.” Today, the firm has over 200 customers, including MXPlayer, SonyLiv, Zee5, Voot, Hungama, Flipkart Video, Hoichoi, HCL, Samsung, Reliance Industries, Hero, Xiaomi, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz, Asian Paints, FIFA, BMW, India Today, 9XM, Tripleplay, among others.

Samota founded MultiTV in 2014 and its first product was launched in 2016. That year, it secured funding from angel investors led by Nipun Sahni. “I saw a business opportunity for solutions that would support the OTT and live streaming sector by providing smooth and seamless stack for video technology. The enterprises would deliver video experiences while MultiTV would manage the complete back end from encoding, transcoding, subscribers management, or create a business/enterprise application on top of that- essentially a complete video ERP solution,” he says.

MultiTV’s flagship products are Creator and BeLIVE. Creator is an aggregated one-stop OTT solution which automatically manages video content execution. It gives businesses a platform to market their video content as a personalised viewing experience and monetise their content on their terms. BeLIVE is a PaaS (platform as a service), an owned IP that allows the client creative freedom of customisation. It is an all-in-one live virtual events platform where attendees can learn and interact with people from anywhere in the world with an integrated 360-degree distribution ecosystem.

With the Covid-19 pandemic changing how businesses interacted with their clients and partners, MultiTV enabled BeLIVE for large-scale virtual events such as exhibitions, digital concerts, AGMs, etc. The idea was to enable broadcasting, any kind of event over social media, website, or even integration with OTT platforms. “We are in a space where enterprises, brands, or agencies are looking for customisation (like whitelabeling, personalised sign ups, microsites, exhibition booths, AR/VR graphics, chat rooms and more) in a secure environment,” explains Samota.

Along with these, MultiTV offers a bundled multiscreen transcoder and encoder called Streamline that enables automated content ingestion, transformation, and delivery with on-demand archiving. “By transcoding, we can easily stream our video content in multiple formats, multiple bitrates, and multiple definitions over any device,” says Samota. Then there is Pulse—a comprehensive TV ad delivery and tracking platform, Video Commerce —an AI-powered video platform that provides a virtual showroom application for live product showcase and MicroLearn— an interactive learning video platform facilitated with deep analytics.

By March 2021, MultiTV expects 50% revenue each from both CREATOR and BeLIVE. With about 75% customer repeat rate, the company is witnessing 15-20% monthly organic growth. It is also expanding its global footprint by hiring sales teams in new markets such as the US and Europe. It offers its services to clients based on annual contracts and subscriptions as well as on the basis of just one event/one-time use.

It is aiming for a $100 million turnover in the next three years.

With a 50+ engineering team, MultiTV is strengthening its IP and tech stack. Its video tech such as conversational video, graphics processing engine, video encoding and transcoding with low latency are owned IPs, powered by a comprehensive tech stack developed in-house. The coding for these product offerings have also been done in-house. “We work on an API structure that facilitates development of customised applications depending upon the unique needs of the client,” says Samota.