AmagiCorporation, New York City, New York, USA: Baskar Subramanian, CEO

Essay of up to 650 words

Total 644 words used.

Baskar Subramanian, CEO & Co-founder of Amagi, is a serial entrepreneur with many patents to his name. As CEO, Baskar drives Amagi’s vision, growth strategy and execution, enabling the transformation of the global media and entertainment industry through technology innovation. Baskar has been instrumental in developing several of Amagi’s path-defining technologies for cloud broadcast. Under Baskar’s leadership, Amagi has demonstrated strong growth, becoming an industry leader in SaaS-based solutions for broadcast and streaming media.

Placing Amagi on the global media SaaS arena
Baskar was one of the first technology pioneers to conceptualize the transformation that cloud could bring into the capital-intensive and hardware-dependent broadcasting industry. Amagi used the inherent advantages of the cloud to build solutions that streamline and simplify every stage of the broadcasting operation - from channel creation and content management such as program scheduling, graphics insertions, subtitling, quality control,  monitoring and more, to monetizing the content through dynamic ad insertions. Under Baskar’s leadership, Amagi witnessed stellar growth in the areas of channel creation, distribution, and monetization. In FY 2020-21, Amagi experienced –

• 108% YoY revenue growth
• 59% surge in customers onboarded
• 50+ Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) platform partnerships and 100+ platform partnerships globally
• 60% increase in the global workforce to support strong customer growth
• 112% YoY growth in ad impressions generated using Amagi’s dynamic ad insertion platform, Amagi THUNDERSTORM.

Amagi also became the fastest growing media technology company in the world supporting 700+ content brands, 800+ playout chains, and over 2000 channel deliveries on its platform in over 40 countries. Its key customers include A+E Networks UK, CuriosityStream, Discovery Networks, Fox Networks, NBCUniversal, Tastemade, USA Today, and Warner Media, among others. Leading SaaS investors such as Accel, Norwest Venture Partners, and Avataar Ventures invested in Amagi making it the first unicorn in the media SaaS world globally, showing strong faith in its growth potential and its leader’s vision to take it to unprecedented heights. A few examples of the cutting-edge technologies that Baskar conceptualized and led his team to implement over the last two years include:
 Enabling broadcast-grade UHD live playout using cloud, ideal for premier sporting events like the Olympics - Sports broadcasters have been apprehensive about utilizing cloud-native technologies that facilitate live transmission, unsure of their ability to deliver low latency, high bandwidth videos of the kind that on-premise hardware systems deliver. Amagi’s coverage of the Tokyo Olympics has changed many of these preconceptions. With the Olympics, Baskar and his team at Amagi have brought cloud and UHD onto the mainstream, paving the way for more innovations in broadcasting and streaming. 
Establishing deep technical integrations with CTV-led Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) platforms - As viewership and advertising shift from traditional cable TV to CTV-led FAST, it’s critical for content owners to be available on multiple platforms driving higher audience reach. Under Baskar’s vision and guidance, Amagi was able to create a level playing field for content creators to help them launch 24/7 channels and compete with large broadcasters for viewership.  
Setting up the largest first-party ad platform in the CTV advertising landscape - Baskar also led Amagi to establish the largest first-party ad platform connecting TV ad buyers (advertising brands) and sellers (content owners and platforms) to an engaged audience pool. Baskar has also facilitated partnerships to bring innovative advertising formats such as Contextual Ad placements, Graphic Overlays and Dynamic Brand Insertions. These formats allow contextually relevant ads to be placed unobtrusively into video streams, thereby, helping content owners reach their ad revenue goals without disrupting the viewing experience.
Offering comprehensive viewership and ad analytics to help content owners and OTT platforms understand their customers better and grow their business and revenues - By offering accurate and granular data on how audiences are engaging with their content, Baskar has armed content creators with information that would help them survive and thrive in the competitive OTT ecosystem.

Total 150 words used.

Baskar Subramanian, CEO & Co-founder of Amagi, took his company to unprecedented heights in the years 2020 - 22. His key achievements include

• Bringing Amagi’s valuation to more than $1 billion, making it a unicorn
• Achieving 100% growth in revenues and 50% growth in customers for two consecutive years
• Establishing Amagi as the fastest growing media technology company in the world with 700+ content brands, 800+ playout chains, and over 2000 channel deliveries on its platform in over 40 countries.
• Scaling the company’s growth across multiple locations and increasing its workforce by 60% during the pandemic
• Setting up the largest Free Ad-supported Streaming TV distribution network (over 100 platforms), effortlessly connecting content owners and platforms
• Elevating sports broadcasting with cloud technology innovations like UHD playout
• Setting up advanced ad tech solutions for the programmatic CTV marketplace, and innovating new ad formats for placing contextually relevant & unobtrusive ads on TV