Kaltura is a global publicly-traded company established in the internet video industry. The founders of the company are Ron Yekutiel, Shay David, Michal Tsur, and Eran Etam. Kaltura was founded in 2006 and it is currently based in New York City, US. It is mainly a software company that offers products in four major markets. They are Cloud TV (over-the-top media service), online video platform (OVP), Education Video Platform, and Enterprise Video Platform. When Kaltura was founded, it was established with an idea that video content is a way to revolutionize communication and collaboration in our lives.
About Kaltura
Kaltura works as a team of approximately 750 members. The company has offices in foreign countries like Brazil, Singapore, Israel, the UK, and the US. From all the co-founders of the company, Eran Etam is not holding any current position at Kaltura. In 2018, Kaltura was on the list of “20 Tech Innovators to Watch” and two years later it became one of the companies to exceed $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
The company offers video product solutions across every enterprise in various industries. For educational purposes, it has three products, Virtual Classroom, LMS Video, and Lecture Capture. Recently, Malaysia’s leading entertainment company, Astro has chosen Kaltura for its new streaming service. In December 2021, the company has also collaborated with Vodafone Germany.
Early Days of the Company
Founded in 2006, Company was officially launched in the market in 2007 at the TechCrunch40 industry event. Thus the launch of the company took place in San Francisco and those who were attending the conference voted Kaltura for the People’s Choice award. When the company was launched, Kaltura operated with only twenty members and received funding of $2.1 million from Avalon Ventures and other investors. In 2007, the company became a hit as it became the winner of the Mashable Open Web Awards. It was a People’s Choice Award where more than 250,000 people voted in the Video Sharing category. In the same year, Company also established a partnership with New York Public Library.
Kaltura became one of the companies in 2008 that received “Global 250 Winners” by AlwaysOn. The company established a partnership with Wikimedia Foundation in the same year with a common goal to bring quality media content to Wikipedia and other similar websites. The main idea behind this project was to develop software (a video-wiki type software) and that it would be integrated into the MediaWiki platform. This software would be an extension allowing users to add video players that would enable adding and editing any kind of media (pictures, audio, video, etc). This was a very progressive idea as media content like images and videos always tend to have a more impactful impression on our minds.
To bring more advancement into the process of making this software, Michael Dale, an open-source video developer to develop this video editing solution for the Wikipedia pages. This was announced in the Wikimania 2008 event which was also sponsored by Kaltura. The company has also established Open Video Alliance, a community where people work towards improving the video standards for the websites.
Recent Events
To develop an integrated media solution for Blackboard Learn (™), Kaltura and Kaltura Blackboard Inc collaborated in 2011. In 2014, Kaltura acquired a company called Tvinci for its OTT TV service, In the following years it partnered with several companies and also raised $50 million from Goldman Sachs in 2016. For showcasing the new OTT experience, Kaltura partnered with companies like 24i Media, Encompass, Harmonic, and Inception. The company was planning to file an IPO since 2015 and it has also turned down an offer of a $500 million acquisition to do so. But, one of the founders of the company, Shay David mentioned in 2017 that the company will go public only when the valuation of Kaltura comes close to $1 billion.
Ron Yekutiel – Co-Founder and CEO of Kaltura
Ron Yekutiel, one of the founders of Kaltura is in the position of CEO from the very beginning. In 2003, he also co-founded another company called VisualGate Systems Inc (a video surveillance company). Ron Yekutiel went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has also co-founded and lead GPSoft Ltd before Kaltura happened.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more