Telstra buys major stake in enterprise video platform Ooyala

Enterprise-level video platform Ooyala has been scooped up by major telecom company Telstra, the companies announced today.

Ooyala provides video services (such as publishing/encoding, custom video players, and video analytics) for some of the top media brands in the world, including Univision, Foxtel, Comedy Central, and NBC Universal. Its services are viewed as a real solution for companies that need video services that scale well beyond YouTube and Vimeo.

Telstra already owned a 23 percent stake in Ooyala and had invested $61 million in the company. As part of the deal, the telecom will pay an additional $270 million to own 98 percent of Ooyala (total purchase price was not disclosed), which will then become a subsidiary of Telstra.

Ooyala will continue to operate as a separate business under current CEO Jay Fulcher.

“With today’s news we catapult Ooyala from innovative online video start-up to market-leading cloud TV juggernaut,” Fulcher said in a statement. “As the world’s collective definition of TV and video blurs across multiple devices and a more personalized viewing experience, the technologies and measurement tools for content delivery and monetization will evolve.”

Ooyala also said that the acquisition deal will allow the company to scale its services across the globe, as well as continue to build a video platform that caters to media brands that need to maintain both a linear TV experience as well as a presence on the web.