Thought Equity Motion Raises $25 Million For Cloud-Based Video Asset Management

Thought Equity Motion has raised $25 million from Shamrock Capital Advisors to further develop its cloud-based video asset management platform and expand globally. As Kevin Schaff, CEO and founder of Thought Equity Motion explained to me last week, the company is capitalizing on the media industry's shift from analog to digital work flows which is improving operational reliability, saving capex and opening new revenue opportunities.

Thought Equity Motion has optimized its cloud service for media companies that want to move from storing high-value libraries on tape or on local hard drives to doing so in the cloud. First and foremost, Kevin said the company's focus is on secure, redundant master file storage. Thought Equity Motion's cloud is particularly suited to large video file sizes with high throughput ingest and encoding. The company is now ingesting 1 petabyte of video per month, a dramatic increase from just 6 months ago. Files are kept at a secure, enterprise-class physical storage facility with on-demand encoding and access.

There's huge cost savings and improved reliability for media companies with cloud storage, but Thought Equity Motion is going a step further by trying to unlock new value in archived content. On request the company can apply metatdata on selected titles at the frame-specific level, which in turn can drive new licensing or consumer-facing businesses. In the past I've written about the NCAA Vault and ACC Vault initiatives that have attracted fan and sponsor interest. Thought Equity Motion offers APIs that allow content owners to distribute metadata-enhanced video to various partners.

Sports and entertainment companies are the two big segments adopting Thought Equity Motion's video platform. Kevin gave an example of a large sports broadcaster that is delivering Thought Equity Motion live uncompressed feeds, eliminating the need for tape and saving on staff expense.  By applying metadata, Thought Equity Motion quickly makes highlights available for the broadcaster to license and distribute. Conversely, for an entertainment customer, Thought Equity Motion is storing and backing up dailies, and also dubbing dozens of different final versions for digital delivery to international distributors. Digital masters are securely stored for future access.

In addition to its platform services, Thought Equity Motion also works with 400 different content owners to license news, sports, entertainment and creative stock footage to third parties from a library of 9 million hours of highlights. The company has a staff of researchers and rights clearance experts that work with clients to secure appropriate clips. Thought Equity got its start with footage licensing and Kevin said that it developed its platform expertise in concert with its numerous licensing partners, learning the ins and outs of their digital work flows.

Looking ahead, Kevin sees huge opportunities as media companies continue to transition from analog to digital and as new ways of generating revenue out of library content develop.

(Note: Thought Equity Motion is a VideoNuze sponsor)

Categories: Deals & Financings, Technology

Topics: ACC, NCAA, Shamrock Capital Advisors, Thought Equity Motion