Backed by $200M in funding, Backlight will invest in Zype aiming to drive innovation and customer success in streaming video infrastructure.
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NEW YORK (April 12, 2022) - Zype, a video API and infrastructure platform, today announced that it has been acquired by Backlight, a global media technology holding company backed by a leading growth equity firm, PSG. Earlier today, Backlight announced the acquisition of Zype and four other visionary media technology companies, all sharing a common vision to dramatically improve the way content producers, owners and distributors create value with video and rich media.
“Joining forces with Backlight, with its resources, scale and direct investment in Zype, is exciting for the Zype team and, in our opinion, amazing for our customers,” said Zype CEO Ed Laczynski. “Our clients rely on Zype not only for incredible performance, user experience, and connectivity, but also continuous innovation in an evolving video landscape. We believe this investment enables Zype to even better serve our customers with mission-critical video infrastructure. Moreover, we believe being a part of the broader Backlight organization, with technologies and touch points across the entire video lifecycle, will create even more collaboration, opportunities and benefits for our customers.”Zype offers full-stack video distribution technology - including content management, playout and monetization capabilities - to enable media and entertainment companies and brands to quickly build, launch, and manage superior video products at scale. Zype provides connectivity to social, connected TV and OTT, web, and FAST / MVPD ecosystems, with more than 1,350 customer apps and playout channels in the market built on the Zype platform and reaching approximately 30 million monthly unique viewers.
With the financial backing of Backlight, last year Zype acquired MAZ Systems, a leading no-code OTT app development platform used to power applications such as TMZ and Outside TV. The acquisition of MAZ added no-code OTT TV and mobile app automation to Zype’s offering under the brand Zype Apps Creator. This solution helps enterprise video publishers create app-based experiences for the billions of people who watch streaming video across mobile, tablet, connected TV, web browsers, and gaming consoles.
“Outside has had a great experience partnering with Zype to power our mobile, OTT, and CTV apps,” said Ryan Dadd, head of video product for Outside Interactive Inc. “We are excited to benefit from the additional investments the team will be able to make in product innovations and great customer service.”
“We believe Ed and the Zype team may well have built the most powerful, well-architected platform for video management and distribution in the market - we were simply blown away by the strength of their technology and products,” said Ben Kaplan, president and CEO of Backlight. “In our view, Zype has a huge opportunity to disrupt the market and replace legacy OVPs and video infrastructure providers. We are excited to partner with Ed and invest in Zype’s products, team and customer success with the goal of powering high-performing and profitable streaming experiences for video content owners.”
Zype is joined by four other fast growing media tech companies that were also acquired by Backlight and received strategic growth investment from PSG. All five companies are operating as business units as part of Backlight.
- ftrack is the creator of ftrack Studio, cineSync, and ftrack Review, the Emmy and Academy Award-winning production tracking, interactive media review, and team collaboration platforms for the creative industries. ftrack’s solutions are designed for producers, supervisors, artists, and pipeline developers to collaborate with anyone, anywhere.
- Iconik is a cloud-native, SaaS media management solution that is designed for users to share files from any storage, collaborate on video, and enrich media with AI for high searchability—all with great ease and the ability to scale to serve solo creators or large global teams.
- Celtx’s all-in-one solution for writing, planning, and managing media production is used by millions worldwide. Celtx provides pre-production planning software, including scriptwriting, storyboarding, shot-planning and budgeting, to in-house production teams, agencies, film schools and universities, game studios, and media & entertainment companies.
- Wildmoka is a leading platform for the creation of live and near-live content in Sports, News and Entertainment. Its cloud-native Digital Media Factory aims to empower broadcasters and rights owners to produce and deliver content from any source, to any destination, in any format, at speed and at scale.
About Zype
Zype provides infrastructure for digital video, with a cloud-based platform to manage and distribute enterprise-grade video across web, mobile, TV, and social media. Offering both developer-friendly tools such as customizable APIs as well as turnkey solutions for automated app publishing and playout, Zype's SaaS enables video creators, publishers or distributors to quickly build, launch and manage superior video products at scale. With a wide ecosystem of video connectors and technology partners and an award-winning support team, Zype's customers confidently increase reach, engagement and monetization by delivering premium entertainment experiences. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York, Zype is a privately held company with more than 300 customers worldwide.
About Backlight
Backlight is a media technology company that improves video content ideation, production, post production and distribution. Launched in 2022 with funding from PSG, Backlight acquired award-winning media software businesses ftrack, Celtx, iconik, Wildmoka and Zype. Video-forward organizations utilize Backlight to solve their mission-critical business and operational challenges. Visit www.backlight.co for more information.
About PSG
PSG is a growth equity firm that partners with software and technology-enabled services companies to help them navigate transformational growth, capitalize on strategic opportunities and build strong teams. Having backed more than 95 companies and facilitated over 375 add-on acquisitions, PSG brings extensive investment experience, deep expertise in software and technology and a firm commitment to collaborating with management teams. Founded in 2014, PSG operates out of offices in Boston, Kansas City, London, Paris, Madrid and Tel-Aviv. To learn more about PSG, visit www.psgequity.com.
Contact:
Hotwire for Backlight (and Zype)
BacklightUS@hotwireglobal.com