Exclusive Interview with Vinayak Shrivastav, Co-Founder & CEO, VideoVerse

Video editing is the most crucial and at the same time most painstaking part of video making. Videos being the inevitable part of business promotion and content marketing strategies, there seems to be no escape from the frame-by-frame video editing process. Now AI has made this job easy for editors even allowing them to automate the trivial parts of the video editing process leaving them enough time and energy to think about the storyline. VideoVerse provides AI-enabled video editing technologies which include automated video editing, meta-tagging, smart live streaming solutions, and cloud-based editing services. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Vinayak Shrivastav, Co-Founder & CEO, of VideoVerse.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Magnifi (by VideoVerse) delivers ground-breaking and innovative video analysis and editing technologies that are uniquely designed for users of all skill levels, offering platform solutions for unmatched transformation and seamless digital outreach of sports content. Using AI and ML technology to revolutionize how content is refined, analyzed, and consumed, Magnifi's solution intelligently analyzes video footage based on specified, preset criteria. Content is analyzed in seconds, as opposed to minutes and hours, with clips being auto-resized and optimized to meet various social platform requirements so they can be auto-shared with speed and ease. Fully automated, and requiring no manual intervention, Magnifi offers both an API-based developer-friendly model and a full-service easy-to-use platform, to its customers. Magnifi's solutions significantly reduce go-to-market time and costs while increasing ROI and opening new revenue streams for its enterprise customers.

2. With what mission and objectives, the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company?         

Magnifi was founded by engineering pioneers and visionaries from the VC sector that were frustrated with the slow innovation and adoption of new-age technologies in the media sector. Sharing a passion for AI-led technologies and a desire to see the media sector evolve, the founders embarked on developing their platform technology to fill a major gap in the market, starting with the world of sports digital content and streaming.

Since its launch, Magnifi (by VideoVerse) has gone from strength to strength, securing contracts with major sporting groups and broadcast entities, while also securing $46.8M in Series B funding to help fuel its international growth. Today, the company operates from its headquarters in Mumbai, with office locations in New York, London, Israel, and Singapore.

3. Tell us how your company is contributing to the IoT/AI/Big Data Analytics industry of the nation and how the company is benefiting clients.          

Magnifi's technology is completely reimagining the "highlight reel" process in the sports industry, providing sports broadcasters, leagues, and clubs with simple editing tools that automatically capture key moments, from key plays and in-game scenarios to tracking specific players, fan interactions, and brand sponsor mentions.

With Magnifi's mobile-first strategy, sports content creators can scale their video for any platform or social media channel with a single click, boosting overall reach, engagement, and ROI.

OTT players, broadcasters, sports clubs and leagues, marketing agencies, e-gaming platforms, schools, colleges, and other businesses have found Magnifi's product-market fit to be exceedingly strong.

4. Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how they get value out of it.      

Magnifi is the flagship enterprise solution offered by VideoVerse. Magnifi endeavors to connect fans with real-time, relevant, and customized video content and make content discoverability easier. To this end, our proprietary AI models extract highlights and key moments from enterprise video content to auto-produce social-ready clips. The technology renders itself seamlessly to sports, news, and entertainment videos.

Other products by VideoVerse include:

Illusto: A cloud-based intuitive video editing tool that empowers creators, professionals, and beginners to bring their impactful stories to life. Illusto offers a wide range of creative templates to match your storyline and enhance your video editing process. Create dynamic content on the go, add personalized branding for a higher impact, and publish on all social media platforms with the click of a button.

Styck: The live streaming solution to connect with the audience and maximize reach across multiple digital platforms simultaneously at the click of a button. Features include multi-streaming, video scheduling, and analytic tracking.

5. How is the Big Data/AI industry changing? What are some of the key technology transformations in this space?  

Big Data / AI is reshaping businesses across the globe. Some estimates predict that AI will add $13trillion to the global economy by 2030. In the last year, one big change has been in the way AI is being adopted across large enterprises. What was once considered a siloed disruption for one part of the business is now being viewed as a necessary evolution for interdepartmental collaboration. Faster GPUs, improved development platforms, and affordable data storage are all contributing factors to the transformation we are seeing in the adoption of AI.

6. How does your company's strategy facilitate the transformation of an enterprise?           

Magnifi offers a clear quantitative value proposition to its consumers, decreasing time-to-edit by 95%, staffing expenses by less than half, and creating up to-3x higher engagement.

At Magnifi, success is defined by the speed and scale with which its features are developed, with the machine being precisely trained to recognize selected and specialized sporting/play moments.

In the Australian Open, for example, an OTT platform client wanted to automatically track and film rallies of more than ten strokes. This and more were made possible by VideoVerse's Magnifi technology, which delivered crucial moment clips in real-time for social media posting without the need for manual intervention.

7. How has the adoption of VideoVerse's technology in India/the US evolved over the last few years?

Magnifi has seen remarkable growth in the adoption of its platform across the sporting world. Starting with its primary AI models for cricket and then adding other sports like football, rugby, hickey, tennis, golf, etc, Magnifi has been able to cater to sports rights holders across the globe. There were some initial adoption challenges, as is usually the case with all new technologies. But the founding team was determined in their efforts and their persistence paid off. The unprecedented growth in demand for short-form video content also proved to be a boost for the brand and it has added entertainment and news content into its portfolio in the last year.