Cinedigm joins Indian streaming media bandwagon

Cinedigm March 8 announced it has reached an agreement to acquire FoundationTV, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based analytics company with an engineering and R&D hub in Kolkata, India.

Founded in 2013 by a team of computer and data scientists with extensive expertise in streaming media, big data, AI, cloud and distributed systems, FoundationTV enables streaming services to operate on a global scale. The company co-developed the Matchpoint technology platform that currently backends Cinedigm’s portfolio of streaming channels.

Cinedigm plans to integrate FoundationTV, Matchpoint and their respective software teams into a new Indian-based division, Cinedigm India. The new division will be based in Kolkata and will serve as the company’s engineering, research and development hub for video streaming technology. As part of the acquisition, FoundationTV co-founders Sudipta Ghorui and Sudeept Bhatnagar will take on leadership roles and jointly oversee the Cinedigm India operations. FoundationTV’s engineering team will join Cinedigm, and will be responsible for further developing and enhancing the combined platform’s state-of-the-art capabilities.

“With the completion of this acquisition, Cinedigm now has the proprietary technology to compete with the largest streaming services in the industry and also an even more compelling competitive advantage as we accelerate our strategy of growth through acquisition,” Erick Opeka, chief strategy officer and president of Cinedigm Networks, said in a statement.

In addition to enhancing and extending Cinedigm’s streaming business, the Indian team will also begin development and planning for a new, branded global service that will showcase the home entertainment distributor’s portfolio of more than 20 branded streaming channels and thousands of hours of video content.

The company plans to enable subscriptions individually, or with multiple Cinedigm services under one affordable bundle, and will offer them for purchase in App Stores across the streaming ecosystem, as well as through select distribution partners around the globe.

FoundationTV follows up on Cinedigm’s recent acquisitions of The Film Detective, Fandor and Screambox. The platform will also be made available commercially to select Cinedigm partners and customers.

FoundationTV has also developed a proprietary AI-based recommendation engine that enables personalized experiences, maximizes subscriber engagement. Moving above and beyond simple content recommendations, the company’s technology automates the personalization of a user’s entire streaming experience — recommended media, genres, personalized search, contextualized content, dynamic programming and more.

“We are excited to become a part of Cinedigm in taking the next leap redefining and transforming the streaming experience for consumers, scaling on a global footprint with Cinedigm content and building on our intelligence driven cloud-native streaming technology platform,” Ganguly said. MediaPlay News