Service backed by Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company; additional investment from Firstlight Media; Firstlight Media using Gen 5 architecture built on Microsoft Azure

Firstlight Media announced that they are collaborating with the television industry’s newest OTT service, Struum, to deploy their new cloud-native streaming platform that is built on revolutionary Gen 5 architecture.

As part of a longstanding development relationship, Firstlight Media will leverage Microsoft Azure’s hyperscale cloud platform and its own microservices-based architecture to create for Struum an agile, scalable, extensible service. The service will enable consumers to seamlessly find and access content from multiple content partners and OTT providers, using a single Struum subscription and a credits-based purchase model.

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The Struum platform is designed specifically to help consumers discover and consume content from hundreds of niche and specialty services. Struum was founded by former Disney and Discovery executives Lauren DeVillier, Paul Pastor, Eugene Lieu and Thomas Wadsworth, and is backed by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company.  Firstlight Media also is an investor in the service as part of its accelerator initiative to expedite the growth of scalable OTT services.

“Our ambition is to capture the habits of consumers by aggregating multiple services and providing viewers with a seamless way to discover and consume content,” said Lauren DeVillier, CEO of Struum. “Firstlight Media has helped us to launch an OTT service using its Gen 5 architecture on Microsoft technology, enabling us to come to market in months and accelerating our ability to launch new partners as we welcome them to the Struum family.”

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The Firstlight Media platform delivers step-changes in performance, flexibility and scale. By combining Firstlight Media’s portfolio of more than 110+ microservices, player libraries, and UI clients with Microsoft Azure’s cloud and AI technology, customers such as Struum can quickly and cost effectively scale and respond to the needs of consumers. This includes the development of highly engaging and personalized 360-degree customer experiences that benefit from Firstlight Media’s AI/ML capabilities. The Struum platform is built on Microsoft Azure services like Azure Kubernetes Services and Azure DevOps and leverages Azure’s best in class cloud security technology.

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“Consumers are demanding more choice and flexibility in how, where and what they consume with their media. Similarly, our partners are demanding flexibility and scale in the cloud services they choose,” said Hanno Basse, CTO Azure Media & Entertainment. “We’re pleased to work with Firstlight Media as they leverage Azure to power their cloud-native streaming platform and make it available to innovative new consumer services like Struum.”

“Struum is uniquely and innovatively attacking a growing industry problem: consumers’ frustration around finding, paying for and accessing content in a crowded SVOD market,” said Andre Christensen, CEO and Co-Founder of Firstlight Media. “As a result of our work with Microsoft and the Azure cloud platform, Struum will be able to achieve rapid service velocity at launch, to scale as subscribership grows, and to nimbly deploy new, cloud-based features that promote engagement, monetization and long-term value.”

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