Laminar bags $5.1 million funding to help media firms build streaming services

Laminar, a startup that provides video streaming infrastructure to media companies and content owners, announced on May 23 that it has raised $5.1 million in seed funding from Leo Capital, Artha India Ventures, Garuda Ventures, Cloudcap and Sampson Acquisitions.

This investment comes amid rapid adoption of cloud-based software solutions among media companies as the consumption of video content witnesses a significant growth across the world.

Started in 2020 by Narendra Nag, Raheel Khursheed, Tirthraj Singh, Kumar Shorav and Yin Shanyang, Laminar says it enables content owners to launch a global video streaming service in 12-weeks or less.

Media companies get the ability to customise and launch apps across all platforms, set up multiple types of monetisation options, meet all tax and compliance requirements, and get a complete data and analytics suite, the company said in a statement.

Laminar CEO Nag said this investment will enable them to scale their business and expand their global footprint. Laminar currently has a presence in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Dubai, New Delhi and Singapore with an engineering team based out of Poland’s Wroclaw and Spain’s Barcelona.

As media companies see content consumption rapidly shifting away from cable, satellite and direct-to-home (DTH) around the world, Laminar’s product will help media companies “who don’t want to spend time and money re-inventing the wheel”, said Leo Capital founding partner Rajul Garg.

Among Laminar’s clients include Chaupal, a video streaming service that focuses on Punjabi, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri content. The company claims that Chaupal launched its service in 110 countries, with country specific plans, content and user interface across mobile phones, televisions and other streaming devices in 12 weeks. Laminar says it also has customers in the United States, South Asia and South-East Asia.

“This is our first major investment in Europe. We were pleasantly surprised by the width of their client base looking to solve this issue. Because they let OTT content providers focus on their core business — creating content” said Artha India Ventures Director Anirudh A Damani.

Bengaluru-based Amagi is currently a major player in this space. It recently raised $95 million funding led by venture capital firm Accel, nearly six months after bagging $100 million from Accel, Avataar Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Premji Invest. The company had entered India’s startup unicorn club following this investment in March 2022.

Other investments in video infrastructure segment include VideoVerse that raised $46.8 million in Series B funding led by A91 Partners, Alpha Wave Global and existing investor Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal in April 2022, and Dyte that raised $11.6 million in seed funding from Shravin Bharti Mittal’s Unbound, Sequoia India’s Surge and Nexus Venture Partners.

Live video-conferencing infrastructure startup 100ms also raised $20 million financing led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) and participation from Matrix Partners India and LocalGlobe and existing investors Accel and Strive.vc in March 2022. Money Control