Privately held video technology company Ooyala is leaning towards an IPO rather than an outright sale of the company, its CEO says, even though it has attracted plenty of interest from prospective buyers. "We have not entertained any of those overtures to this point," Jay Fulcher said in an interview this week. "We have this opportunity to build a big and valuable business. We have no intention of selling it."
Ooyala helps companies, including many of the biggest media conglomerates, manage their online videos and generate revenue from them. The company says it streams more than one billion videos a month, handling content from customers ranging from broadcasters ESPN and Bloomberg to movie studios Miramax and Walt Disney. It also counts Telegraph Media Group, News International and Washington Post as clients.
"What differentiates Ooyala is analytics," Fulcher said. "We have more ability to capture more information around how people are consuming content than any other company in the industry." Fulcher declined to say when the company might go public. Ooyala, which also counts Yahoo Japan as one of its top customers, expects to be managing 50 percent of all web video traffic in Japan by the first half of 2012. Fulcher declined to disclose Ooyala's current market share in Japan.