Yahoo acquires RayV
July 14, 2014
By Colin Mann
In a move that it says will accelerate its video strategy and boost its underlying technology infrastructure in the space, Yahoo has acquired Israel-based online video platform RayV for an undisclosed sum. According to Yahoo’s P.P.S. Narayan, VP of Cloud Platforms and Services, RayV has “an exciting approach to online video streaming in the rapidly evolving mobile space.
“Watching mobile and online video has gone from being a novelty to a daily habit for millions of users. Yahoo is focused on growing video users and monthly streams, and while we’re only getting started, we’re very focused on this in 2014. This deal demonstrates our dedication to accelerating our video strategy and boosting our underlying technology infrastructure in the space,” he wrote on Yahoo’s Tumblr feed.
“At Yahoo, we are focused on building a video offering that delivers best-in-class quality and content, and can be streamed on-demand and live, on all platforms. The RayV team shares our passion for innovation and commitment to build a video infrastructure to deliver the ultimate video experience to our users. RayV has built a compelling technology that enables improved high quality streaming for online and mobile content partners,” has said.
“The team lives and breathes video, and have become industry pioneers. Omer Luzzatti, Co-Founder and CTO and Ofer Shem-Tov, Co-Founder and Chief Architect are veterans in the audio and multimedia space with key VoIP startups under their belt. They have solid domain expertise and a passion for video that makes them a perfect fit for the Yahoo Video and CDN platfor,” he suggested.
Narayan said most of the RayV team, would join the Yahoo R&D centre in Tel Aviv.
For its part, a statement on the RayV website said its team had begun the RayV journey with the goal of building a revolutionary video distribution platform that would provide a better video experience for viewers over the Internet, while easing the distribution process for content creators. “Over the last eight years, we have done just that,” asserted the RayV team.
“Our RayV adventure now comes to a pivot, and we couldn’t be more excited. We believe Yahoo will be a perfect fit for our people and capabilities, as Video and Mobile offerings are a central part of Yahoo’s vision. Yahoo’s global scale and broad content base, combined with its amazing leadership and appetite for success, creates an ideal environment for our team to thrive and be pushed to the next level,” they suggested.
“During our journey, we have shaped and then crystallised our streaming paradigm and invented the algorithms to support it. We have built a full end-to-end solution that enables improved high quality streaming for our online and mobile video content partners, delivering a robust video experience to our customers. Most importantly, we have had the privilege to stream video to viewers daily while broadcasting hundreds of live channels created by some of the world’s largest content owners.” they noted.