We are thrilled to announce our recent investment in Vydia, a game-changing digital rights management, distribution, and monetization platform that uniquely empowers creators and content focused brands in the streaming world. Here’s what’s getting us so excited:
A transforming industry: lower barriers to entry, but still friction to ‘breakout’ success
It’s an exciting time for content creators (musicians, comedians, lifestyle video makers, content focused brands, etc.), many of whom earn their living by leveraging social media to reach their audience. With the rise of digital streaming platforms and lower cost of production and promotion, there has arguably never been a better time to take the leap into digital content generation. Streaming media consumption continues to grow rapidly (especially video) and advertisers are allocating more of their budget to it. Recognizing this opportunity, all major platforms (including Facebook as of late) are increasingly vying for the attention of creators, the lifeblood of any direct publishing platform. Sum it all up: there is real money to be made – and audiences to be built – in streaming content, something that was not so apparent a few years ago. Just consider the number of channels earning six figures per year on YouTube is up 50% year-over-year.
Nevertheless, it remains highly challenging to achieve breakout success going at it alone. Lack of access to certain platforms (e.g. Vevo), lack of technical chops, inability to protect rights and lengthy publishing lags create significant friction between moderate and tremendous success for DIY-ers. Not to mention managing a content library and analyzing performance across multiple publishing platforms could be a full-time gig. The alternative to a DIY approach also has major drawbacks. To date, many independent creators, their managers and brands have been forced to give up a hefty chunk of their revenue, decision-making control and visibility as they have turned to content aggregators/distributors – including the traditional players as well as a new crop of service providers applying old models to the digital world. Creators with high ambitions have been stuck between a rock and hard place.
Vydia’s game-changing solution:
Vydia leverages scalable technology to remove these impediments by equipping creators, not taking over. By taking a tech-first vs. a traditional service model approach, Vydia is uniquely able to put the creator in the driver’s seat. With a few clicks (or mobile touches on the go), users can instantly set the dials for each piece of content exactly as they wish across platforms. It gets even more exciting with the deep data science that Vydia has deployed to deliver powerful, individualized insights. Things like optimal distribution timing, intelligent bench-marking and performance prediction have never been available at scale in this context. All of this, along with Vydia’s exceptional standing with major industry partners, enables creators to:
- Significantly increase revenue
- Expand reach and exposure
- Reduce time to publish
- Retain control over decision making
- Protect IP
- Receive simple, actionable insights based on leading data science
- Save time / reduce administrative burden (one-stop, centralized management tool)
- Simply archive content in cloud as backup
These tenets are continuously driven ahead by a forward-thinking, highly reputed founder, Roy LaManna, and a fast-moving leadership team that is firmly rooted in the mission. Using purpose-built technology, the company is putting talented artists and brands in the driver’s seat and uniquely equipping them with the tools to achieve breakthrough success. We firmly believe the Vydia team is boldly blazing the path forward for the industry and we look forward to working with them to further realize their vision.
