As live-streaming becomes a larger part of everyday life, a Chicago-based tech company building streaming platforms for the sports and media industry is trying to improve the viewing experience for everyone.
Phenix, founded by Stefan Birrer in 2014, builds live-stream infrastructure for its clients that it says can provide a better and more real-time viewing experience. Phenix says much of the existing streaming tech has issues around latency, the amount of time between the instant a frame is captured and displayed.
Latency issues can cause live-streams to lag by several seconds or even minutes, meaning viewers aren’t actually seeing events in real-time or even at the same time as other live-stream viewers. This becomes an issue when remote viewers are watching events together but seeing the events transpire at different times. This makes it difficult for viewers to communicate about what’s going on as it happens, and creates a disadvantage for sports gamblers who rely on live-streams to make real-time bets.
But Phenix says its proprietary software can bring live events to millions of users in synchronized streams with sub-half second latency at broadcast quality and scale across devices and internet providers. The startup says it has more than 30 customers across the sporting event, sports betting and media industries, including Cox Media Group and ABC, which Phenix helped stream parts of the 2019 Oscars programming, like red carpet and behind-the-scenes moments.
Before founding Phenix, Birrer worked in finance at the Chicago Board of Trade and at video chatting company Skype. Last September, Phenix brought on Roy Reichbach, previously the president and CEO of New York-based streaming company NeuLion, as its CEO.
“The objective for Stefan was to be able to stream the opening of the Olympic games to a billion people simultaneously in real-time,” Reichbach said in an interview.
On Tuesday, Phenix announced that it had raised $7.55 million in a Series A round led by Chicago-based sports and tech VC firm KB Partners. Other investors were not disclosed, but Phenix also announced that David Levy, the former Turner Broadcasting System president responsible for Turner’s rights deals with the NBA and Major League Baseball, joined the company as an investor and board member.
Phenix has now raised more than $20 million to date, Reichbach said, adding that the new funding will be used for marketing initiatives and to hire new employees. Phenix currently employs about 30 people, which are all currently working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Even though the crisis has shut down sporting events for the foreseeable future, Reichbach said Phenix has been receiving an influx of interest from potential new clients that are preparing for when they can begin hosting sporting events again but can’t yet have fans in the stands.
“We’re busier now than we’ve ever been," Reichbach said. “Businesses in our space are having to now adapt to what’s going to be a new normal."
