Cinedigm Indian division opens for business
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Editor
| 14 June 2021
Having spent the best part of this year making strategic acquisitions, streaming service provider Cinedigm is accelerating its expansion plans for developing services for India after closing its acquisition of India-based FoundationTV.
Cinedigm Screambox 12Feb2021
Founded in 2013 by a team of computer and data scientists from Apple, Oracle, NEC, and Yahoo, with expertise in streaming media, big data, AI, cloud, and distributed systems, the Silicon Valley and India-based company provides direct-to-consumer streaming technology, artificial intelligence, machine-learning and data analytics. Its steaming platform has a focus on enabling personalised streaming services that can operate on a global scale. The company co-developed the Matchpoint technology platform that currently powers Cinedigm’s portfolio of streaming channels.

Through the purchase, Cinedigm plans to integrate the FoundationTV and Matchpoint technology platforms and their respective software engineering teams, into a new Indian-based division, Cinedigm India. The new division will be based in Kolkata, India and will serve as the company’s engineering, research and development hub for video streaming technology. As part of the acquisition, FoundationTV’s engineering team will join Cinedigm and will be responsible for further developing and enhancing the combined platform’s capabilities.

In addition to enhancing and supplementing Cinedigm’s technical prowess in OTT and digital distribution, the Cinedigm India team will begin architecting and developing the underlying technology for a global “umbrella” service that will allow Cinedigm to showcase its portfolio of more than 20 streaming channels and more than 15,000 hours of AVOD, SVOD and TVOD video content. The Company plans to enable subscriptions individually, as well as offer bundled pricing for various Cinedigm services. It will offer subscriptions for purchase directly from Cinedigm, via all major App Stores across the streaming ecosystem worldwide, and through major video distribution partners around the globe.

The fully integrated platform will also be used to power and expand the Company’s existing portfolio of streaming services while consolidating Cinedigm’s recent acquisitions like The Film Detective, Fandor and Screambox (pictured) into one unified platform.

“This deal marks the beginning of Cinedigm’s global expansion with the entrance into the world’s fastest growing streaming market,” commented Cinedigm Networks chief strategy officer and president Erick Opeka. “Not only will we have a world-class engineering hub, we will also have an incredibly experienced team of professionals with deep, intrinsic market knowledge that will accelerate the growth of our streaming initiatives.”

“Through this partnership, we are thrilled to integrate our intelligence driven cloud-native streaming technology platform into Cinedigm’s growing streaming business,” added Samrat Ganguly, founder of FoundationTV. “There’s a strong need for content in the booming Southeast Asian market and the technology will allow Cinedigm to expand their global streaming footprint to a new enthusiastic audience.”

Cinedigm India will also be tasked with using Cinedigm’s current roster of streaming channels and content to build new experiences for the entire South Asian market, the second largest in the world with an estimated 800 million streaming users monthly. As part of the acquisition, two founders of FoundationTV, Sudipta Ghorui and Sudeept Bhatnagar, will assume leadership roles and jointly oversee the Cinedigm India operations.