A business set up by serial entrepreneur Charlie Muirhead has chosen to peruse growth on the capital markets.
Rightster, which provides cloud-based services used to optimise the distribution and monetisation of live and on-demand video, has raised £20.4 million through a fundraising on admission.
For news-based customers, the service forms a single platform from which users can upload once and distribute live or VOD digital video content worldwide together with services that drive the activity necessary to maximise audience, the company says.
The London-headquartered company will use the proceeds of its flotation to engage in bolt-on acquisitions, as well as adding content owners and publishers. Having been founded in 2011 by Muirhead, Rightster has a network of 750 content owners and 6,500 publishers.
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Muirhead, CEO of Rightster, says that the global online video market is expected to be worth $37 billion by 2017, but is still a complex and fragmented market.
‘As the first YouTube multi-channel network (MCN) to IPO, Rightster is positioned at the centre of this ecosystem and poised for growth.
‘We expect our growth to come from our focused investment in technology, and we are also in early discussions with a number of possible acquisitions that would accelerate growth through new clients, footprint, expertise and faster monetisation.’
Prior to setting up Rightster, Muirhead was involved in the buy-out of the Music Bank from Hilton Sounds. Following that, and with backing from Esther Dyson, Hermann Hauser and Terry Matthews, he set up Orchestream – which floated with a value of £215 million.
