JW Player Acquires VUALTO to Strengthen Its Comprehensive Video Platform for Success in the Digital Video Economy

The merger combines complementary video offerings to empower established and emerging broadcasters with independence and control, as digital video becomes a must-have for all organizations.

NEW YORK and PLYMOUTH, United Kingdom and AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, May 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — JW Player, the leading video software and data insights platform, today announced it is acquiring VUALTO, a leading provider of live and on-demand video streaming and Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions. The acquisition deepens JW Player’s already robust offering to global broadcasters and further accelerates its vision to empower customers with independence and control in today’s Digital Video Economy by offering easy-to-use, scalable video technology.

This acquisition arrives as the consumption of digital video continues its push to the mainstream. Video now comprises over 80% of all traffic on the internet, and according to JW Player data, people are consuming over two hours of digital video each day, a 40% increase since the beginning of 2020. As a result, a digital video strategy has become a ‘must have’ not only for broadcasters and media companies, but also for organizations of all types, including for JW Player customers in fitness (Centr app), e-commerce (Tag Heuer), sports (Miami Heat) and e-learning (GoNoodle), among others. These new entrants have a diverse range of needs and require a scalable and flexible video platform that allows them to connect and engage with their audiences on the screens of their choice. Given these dynamics, the addressable market will grow from $14B today to $50B by 2027, a 20% CAGR.

“Over the past two years, digital video has become ubiquitous. We now live in the Digital Video Economy, and as a platform company that empowers our customers with independence and control, JW Player is uniquely positioned to succeed in this environment,” said Dave Otten, CEO and co-founder of JW Player. “Joining forces with VUALTO further solidifies our position. Their world-class technology stack expands our platform to include broadcast-level live streaming and content protection services, which are critical for today’s customers. We could not be more excited about this partnership and look forward to innovating together with the highly-talented VUALTO team.”

JW Player’s platform combines highly-scalable video delivery with data insights from 2.7 billion unique monthly devices to help its customers achieve their business goals with video. VUALTO complements JW Player’s offering with market-leading, high-end live streaming and DRM services for broadcasters. The combined result is a single platform for high-quality live and on-demand video delivery across mobile, web and OTT platforms; secure content delivery; and unique insights, intelligence and monetization features to help customers grow their revenue.

Camilla Young, CEO and co-founder, VUALTO, said, “This is a huge growth opportunity for us as a business, as well as for our team. Our successful partnership with JW Player over the past year has given our teams the opportunity to successfully go-to-market under real-world circumstances. Through this, a natural culture match between our teams has already developed, which gives us incredible confidence that together we will be hugely successful. As we embark on this new chapter, our commitment to our existing broadcast customers and our DRM service remains, and we will continue to provide the same high level of support and service that our customers have come to expect from VUALTO.”

VUALTO will expand JW Player’s customer base with prominent customers in the European market and elsewhere, including ITV, the UK’s most popular commercial TV channel, French national public broadcaster France TV, and the European Parliament. These broadcasters join over 12,000 media companies already using the JW Player platform, including broadcasters such as FOX, BBC, CNBC, EuroSport and VICE.

About JW Player
JW Player is the leading video software and data insights platform that gives customers independence and control in today’s Digital Video Economy. Started in 2008 as a hugely popular open source video player, JW Player ’s technology platform now powers digital video for hundreds of thousands of businesses, including half of the comScore top 50 sites in the US, leading broadcasters across EMEA, APAC and Latin America. Each month 1 billion viewers, or one third of all people on the Internet, consume video on JW Player’s technology across 2.7 billion devices, creating an unmatched and powerful consumption and contextual data graph that helps customers grow audiences and generate incremental video from digital video. The company is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Eindhoven, visit http://www.jwplayer.com.

About VUALTO
VUALTO are experts in cloud-based OTT Video Delivery & Orchestration, developing streaming solutions on a global scale. With three products, the VUALTO CONTROL HUB (VCH) video orchestration tool, CLIP2VU live & VOD video clipping & syndication tool, and VUDRM Digital Rights Management, VUALTO deliver an adaptable, scalable & intelligent video delivery solution, taking your content from camera, right through to your chosen users, on multi devices. Working globally, VUALTO develops video solutions for a host of industries to include: Broadcasters, Sports, Governments, Media & Entertainment, OTT Service Providers and Telecoms & Operators. To learn more, please visit www.VUALTO.com.

Contact: videosuccess@VUALTO.com

JW Player Media Contact:
Fatimah Nouilati
Scratch Marketing + Media for JW Player
fatimah@scratchmm.com

VUALTO Media Contact:
Amber Chawner
Whiteoaks International – PR for VUALTO
amberc@whiteoaks.co.uk