As streaming platforms continue to evolve, media companies are looking for technology that simplifies operations while improving monetization. Nick Frazee, executive vice president at Cineverse, says the company's recent acquisitions of IndeeQ and Giant Worldwide have created a unified technology stack spanning ad serving, server-side ad insertion (SSAI), automation, and streaming infrastructure. By bringing these capabilities together, Cineverse aims to help customers reduce complexity while maintaining greater control over their streaming operations.
Frazee believes artificial intelligence will play a growing role in automating media workflows rather than simply generating content. By applying AI to infrastructure data, Cineverse can help customers optimize encoding, playout, hosting, and advertising performance while improving operational efficiency. The company is also expanding its product portfolio with new solutions designed to enhance advertising experiences across both video and audio, reflecting a broader industry shift toward integrated, data-driven streaming technology.
Katie Williams:
Hi, we're here at the StreamTV Show, and I am here with Nick from Cineverse. Nick, thanks for being here with me today.
Nick Frazee:
Hi, Katie. Thanks so much.
Katie Williams:
So I know that Cineverse recently acquired IndiCue and Giant Worldwide. So tell me, how is the acquisition going?
Nick Frazee:
It's been going great. It was February when the deal closed. The last few months have been about synergies. So completing the flywheel between Matchpoint, Giant and IndiCue across the SaaS suite.
It's been phenomenal really. Our technology stacks now are completely unified from ad serving SSAI, the Matchpoint automation suite and UI. At this event, for instance, we actually launched our SSAI dashboard, which is actually represented in Matchpoint as well.
Katie Williams:
So where do you see the IndiCue side of the business going now?
Nick Frazee:
It's about transparency. It's about control. It's about owning your stack. We really feel that the full stack solution we have at Cineverse across these properties is standalone possibly in the world, certainly North America.
So for us at IndiCue, we're focused on delivering ad serving as a standalone product. What's really neat is it's a modular product. So our MSA, for instance, can be an addendum for any of the suite services you see behind you. So the team's really focused on making sure to introduce our ad infrastructure solutions, but also compellingly for the next year it'll be SSAI. So a lot of times you'll have a lot of customers that are large that are very focused on their existing stack, but they'll find value in how our SSAI works, how it compliments current solutions.
Katie Williams:
So I know that we're hearing about a lot of themes here at the StreamTV Show. What themes are you hearing that Cineverse is really leading the charge on?
Nick Frazee:
Well, what's really neat for us is AI for our stack is about automation. So you'll hear, I think, from a common parlance perspective for end users, AI means content, it means ads, it means display or creative solutions. We have a suite that does that, but more compellingly, I think AI when it's applied to the data set that we provide, so whether it's your log level data and your infrastructure, your encoding and transcoding solutions, your playout solutions, your hosting solutions. If you have full transparency and visibility into that, that's where AI really comes into play. So we're going to be leading hard into that this year. We have a lot of releases.
And then secondly, I think it's about consolidation. So cost and efficiencies for everyone in this whole ecosystem stream. I've been going to stream for four years, and a lot of what people have talked about has driven that focus. So media and floor efficiencies and rates has continued to sort of decline and consolidate. The Fox purchase of Roku's proof of that.
Increasingly, partners are coming to us and asking about really cost management. How do they simplify vendors? How do they simplify their stack? How do they cut out a lot of the really supply chain? And that's something that really we can offer. So we offer an easy way to simplify lower costs.
Katie Williams:
That's fantastic. So I know that your earnings call is coming up soon. Can you share any information or give me any insights into that?
Nick Frazee:
You'll see I think on this earnings call, the beginning of the first big pivot for Cineverse in probably a few years. It's representative of a product and technology story that's been led by Erick Opeka and Tony Huidor, the CEO and CPO, to take their own mission to do better with their content and their own infrastructure and now make it a product that people can use. That's really Matchpoint.
Giant and IndiCue represent the continuation of that mission. And on this earnings call, you will hear and see about financials from those acquisitions. So I think the street's going to respond very positively.
Katie Williams:
So to close, tell me what's coming next that you're excited about?
Nick Frazee:
I mentioned SSAI. That's a big focus for us. Our namesake at IndiCue is actually out of ad queuing. So SSAI technology is core to our code base. But I'm really actually personally excited as well for focus we've been building out for the last few months since the acquisition.
Cineverse has a podcast business, top 40. We have direct sales selling into that inventory, and we also have infrastructure to deliver on that audio business. Because we own ad serving, SSAI and the rest, we actually can deliver custom content solutions for our channel and SaaS partners. That will be the product called Vaudio.
So we've been teasing it with some partners today. We actually have some of our first IO signed with names you would know. We wanted to do a release before stream. Not there yet, but the product's been live for two months. The website's up, it's IndiCue.com/vaudio, V-A-U-D-I-O.
And I think you'll be hearing a lot more about that and it really addresses a lot of the core concerns for media owners around rates, ad disparity, ad repetition, user experience. And compellingly, I think it's one of the biggest growth vectors because we all know audio is something that you watch now.
Podcasts are on the Netflix homepage. Apple has a huge initiative, so does Spotify. So we have a lot of big partnerships coming, and I think you'll be hearing a lot more about that.
Katie Williams:
Amazing. Well, I can't wait. Thanks for being here with me today, Nick.
Nick Frazee:
Thanks, Katie.