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April - 2008 - issue > STARTUP CITY
Movico Technologies
Jayakishore Bayadi
Sunday, March 30, 2008
MOVICO TECHNOLOGIES
While the access to entertainment on mobile and Web platforms is increasing with the far-reaching spread of technologies like 3G and Wimax, there is a serious shortage of quality videos that are legal as well as adapted for the platforms to ensure the best viewer experience. When looking at the market for the reasons for this, Movico found that the primary reason is the lack of a tool that allows easy access to footage in a digital form which can then be served to consumers through the channel of their choice (mobile or Web or television). The existing tools are all hardware linked and so prohibitively expensive that most producers and channels think several times before buying them.

Hence, Jha and his friends VN Saroja and Shailendra Nath Rai realized that today, India is going through a major phase of growth in the media and entertainment space at a rate of 35 percent year-on-year. Also, the number of TV channels and the Internet penetration have been increasing. There will be a heavy demand for video–on-demand, streaming video from the Internet, Internet television, TV on mobile, and more. Jha and his team decided to build a product to leverage this new wave and founded the company, Movico Technologies in September 2007.

In December 2007 the company came up with a product namely MediaBaron, an asset and workflow management system which offers a platform for video producers and video distributors to meet their production and distribution needs by integrating every one of the elements of content production in a single product.

DIFFERENTIATOR
The product MediaBaron was built by combining available Web technologies and by creating new tools using C++ and Delphi language on the windows platform (Mac and Linux versions will also be available soon). But conventional incumbent products were built using costly tools and by integrating separate modules together, and so it is expensive. But Movico’s approach was cost effective since the beginning and hence they were able to succeed in bringing out their product at just one-tenth of the cost of the existing products like Dalet, Cinegy, and VizRt.

Another key differentiator is that MediaBaron is a hardware independent product. That is, if one uses existing conventional products, he has to perform his video content editing in conventional expensive machines like SCP-Final cut Pro or Avit, after downloading content from the source (Tape, CD). And then perform activities like aggregation, making the video suitable for Web, and many more. But with MediaBaron 80 percent of the total creative postproduction can be done in a desktop PC. This can provide huge cost savings for the customers, about one-eighth of the total cost over the conventional product. The price of standard version of MediaBaron would be $10,000 and higher versions would cost $ 20-25,000. Whereas existing products cost around $180,000. MediaBaron is completely flexible with respect to platform, OS, and device.

OFFICE
Noida, India

PRODUCT
MediaBaron, a Digital Asset Management/Production Management System for Television and Film Producers and content aggregators.

CO-FOUNDERS
Arvind Jha,
Shailendra Nath Rai
VN Saroja

Arvind Jha has over 21 years of software product development and business experience in senior management roles with global software companies including Adobe India. Shailendra Nath Rai is a professional with over 24 years of varied business experiences, having worked in organizations like LG Electronics and Xerox. VN Saroja has over 18 years of experience in senior management roles. She was a co-founder of Naukri.com.

EARLY INVESTORS
The Company was started with self-funding of about $ 0.5 million and about $ 100,000 raised from well-wishers and angel investors.

CUSTOMERS
A prominent media house in Mumbai, A German TV channel, A Raipur based Cable channel (all in their beta stage).

COMPETITORS
Dalet, Cinegy, and VizRt

BUSINESS MODEL
Movico sells its products in ‘licensed-to use’ model for anyone involved in video content aggregation, distribution, redistribution, and for those who seek innovative and interactive video platforms and collaborative tools.

WHAT’S NEXT?
Movico plans to release full version of MediaBaron by the end of this year. Currently it is working on strategies to build an impressive domestic market share.
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