BlackRock and Goldman Sachs-backed media startup Minute Media, which owns properties like Sports activities Illustrated, The Gamers’ Tribune, and 90 Minutes, introduced Monday that it’s buying VideoVerse, an Indian AI startup that lets broadcasters extract highlights and create content material from sports activities footage. VideoVerse’s shoppers embody the Indian Premier League and Girls’s Premier League Cricket tournaments, FIFA+, and broadcasters Nippon TV and Cubber TV.
Mumbai-based VideoVerse was based in 2016 by Vinayak Shrivastav. The corporate is backed by Bluestone Fairness Companions, A91 Companions (a fund by former Sequioa India execs), and Moneta Ventures, and have raised $105 million in funding to this point.
Whereas Minute Media or VideoVerse didn’t present a valuation for the deal, sources instructed TechCrunch that VideoVerse was valued between $200 million $250 million throughout its final spherical in 2023, and Minute Media’s deal was in an identical vary.
Minute Media CEO Asaf Peled stated that VideoVerse’s acquisition is the most important for the corporate by way of each worth and firm measurement.
Minute Media has largely grown by way of strategic mergers and acquisitions, together with The Gamers’ Tribune, Fansided, Psychological Floss, and STN Video.
Shrivastav stated that in its preliminary days, VideoVerse constructed a number of AI instruments, together with one to detect smoking and consuming, which was useful for the Indian sensor board to flag sure scenes for film certification. It additionally labored on object identification and deployed that tech for e-commerce websites for figuring out objects in a video. Nonetheless, the startup transitioned to constructing video enhancing and detection instruments for sports activities broadcasters.
“In 2016, Hotstar (which is now owned by Jio) was rising, and so they had been in search of an answer that might establish sure motion factors in sports activities and primarily in cricket,” Shrivastav stated about beginning its sports activities journey.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
A couple of years later, VideoVerse dropped its different merchandise and targeting video enhancing options for sports activities content material.
The corporate stated that it operates like a SaaS software for which it expenses primarily based on the variety of hours of footage a broadcaster or streaming service needs to course of. The corporate has grown to $65 million in income and a wholesome EBIDTA margin of 35% to 40%, Shrivastav stated.
The corporate’s chief technique officer, Prateek Sharma, stated that VideoVerse has launched new AI-powered instruments in the previous few months that allow its shoppers outline guidelines to routinely generate content material. For example, for a basketball sport, a broadcaster can create a package deal for all three-pointers scored by a selected participant and routinely publish it on social media. The platform has additionally added AI-powered translation options to let sports activities properties attain followers throughout the globe.
Sharma famous that whereas the platform makes use of third-party fashions in its AI workflows, the corporate makes use of its personal core mannequin to establish key moments in a sport.
Minute Media’s predominant motive behind the acquisition is to make use of VideoVerse’s tech and its personal writer community to higher distribute content material throughout varied sports activities properties and likewise generate advert income out of distributed content material.
The sports activities media firm, which has raised $260 million in line with Crunchbase information, stated that the corporate reaches over 200 million month-to-month customers by way of its properties. It additionally provides a B2B platform for content material distribution, utilized by practically 500 publishers. Minute Media’s Peled stated that this presents an excellent alternative to create extra content material by way of VideoVerse’s platform and monetize it.
“With the VideoVerse acquisition, we are able to go to clients and pitch the AI suite, which is useful for content material creation. Then we are able to add our distribution and monetization capabilities on high of it to get extra worth out of the content material,” Peled stated.
Minute Media needs to focus on extra U.S.-based leagues with this new acquisition to get them to undertake the highlight-generating platform.
A number of reports suggest that followers are in search of a distinct type of content material outdoors conventional protection, particularly on their cell phones. Minute Media is banking on AI to create that content material. Peled stated that whereas the corporate will not be in an energetic funding spherical, it’d search for extra funds within the coming quarters for acquisitions.