By 2020, that’s projected to be nearly $1.7 billion. video communications platform-as-a-service market would be $204.7 million annually. In 2016, IDC projected that in 2018 the U.S. There’s also an emerging class of social applications like Madison, WI-based Gravy, an interactive mobile shopping game show, which uses Agora.io for audio and video streaming. Yativ said the company sees opportunities in gaming, livestreaming, and messaging. But the company intends to expand to serve a more global customer base. Many of its customers – which include Xiaomi, Momo, and Hike – are based in Asia. The company already has over 200 employees spread across offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and its corporate headquarters in Santa Clara, CA. Yativ is bullish on Agora.io’s prospects. “Mobile phones are everywhere now, but that also means we have to support multiple generations of devices from many manufacturers that may run different variants of an operating system. Using one of Agora.io’s algorithms, a user could have fifty or sixty percent packet loss and they could still communicate over video.” “Mobile networks are getting better, but there’s still a lot of variability in network connection quality. Doing that requires a large network of data centers distributed around the world, which, obviously, isn’t easy to get up and running.” “Reducing latency and lag is essential for delivering a good communications experience. This is why we built our own proprietary audio and video codecs, which take up less bandwidth.” “Transmitting high-definition video over the open internet would take up a lot of bandwidth, which doesn’t come cheap. Here are some of the challenges Yativ highlighted: In an interview with Crunchbase News, Reggie Yativ-who is dual-titled as Agora.io’s chief of revenue and operations-said that cost, quality, mobility, and ubiquity are all obstacles to companies which opt to build their own real-time audio and video networks. The challenges around development, implementation, and scaling are manifold. More and more businesses are realizing that their users and customers desire real-time interaction and have started deploying in-app voice and video calling in droves.” In a statement provided to Crunchbase News, Zhao observed that “there’s been a paradigm shift in the way people communicate and engage with across the globe. He was also one of the founding engineers leading real-time audio and visual technology at WebEx, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007 for $3.2 billion in cash. Before Agoraio, Zhao served as the chief technical officer, VP of operations, and board member for five years at YY.com, which went public in November 2012. With $50 million now raised in its Series B round, and $5 million in its Series A round from 2015, the company has raised a total of $55 million in known venture funding.Īgora.io was founded in 2014 by Tony Zhao. The Series B extension the company announced today was, in fact, closed in early 2017, with all prior investors participating. The first part of its Series B, some $20 million, was closed in September 2015 in a round led by SIG China, which also had participation from other China-focused firms like GGV Capital, Morningside Group, Shunwei Capital, and IDG Capital. In an exclusive with Crunchbase News, the company is formally announcing it has raised an additional $30 million in an extension of its Series B round. Agora.io provides a software development kit (SDK) to app developers who wish to integrate live video broadcast or voice and video call functionality into their apps. You may not have heard of the company before, but there’s a chance you’ve used its services. Instead of rolling your own video communications network-and take on the technical burden of maintaining and scaling it-it’s usually easier to deliver those features via existing infrastructure built by specialized service providers.įollow Crunchbase News on Twitter & FacebookĪgora.io is one of the companies operating in the background, helping to facilitate the video revolution with its proprietary real-time communications network. But, like for so much of the technology stack, there’s a platform for that. However, real-time communication can be a huge challenge to implement well. Real-time video and audio communication is a feature the market wants.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |