Telecom Lead India: Mobile video and media provider company Vuclip has acquired Jigsee, a mobile video streaming provider.
The acquisition will enable the SingTel Innov8-funded Vuclip, which has more than 45 million monthly unique users, to add considerable mobile app development talent and proprietary video streaming technologies.
Both companies did not share financial details of the transaction.
Jigsee’s founders include: Ray Newal, president & CEO and Areef Reza, chief technical officer.
Jigsee’s website says Ray, after more than a decade of business development within big internet companies, decided to take some time off and trek through India to see a world he had heard of but never experienced.
Areef, moving to Ottawa from Bangladesh as a young adult, was intimately familiar with the technology constraints of developing countries, as well as the desire among consumers for all things video. After a decade of hard-core engineering with top wireless companies, Areef decided he wanted to apply some of his know-how to the challenge of delivering video to basic cell phones, in low bandwidth environments.
Nickhil Jakatdar, CEO of Vuclip, says Vuclip tackles problems associated with quality user experience with its technology innovation on the browser side. Jigsee approached it primarily with an application-based approach.
The combination of these two will now deliver optimal value to consumers — on both feature phones and low-cost smartphones — as well as business partners in a way that no one else has done before and will accelerate our reach into new markets.
Every day Vuclip delivers more than 25 million videos to consumers all over the world. Users will benefit from more ways to discover and experience mobile video content. Vuclip plans to offer new apps to complement its browser strategy, particularly in India, the Middle East and South East Asia.
“It is inspiring to see Vuclip deliver on its ‘All Things Video’ strategy so aggressively and quickly,” said Jeff Karras, managing director, SingTel Innov8, a part of SingTel.
