The Wall Street Journal’s ranking of the 50 top venture-backed companies was developed using proprietary data from Dow Jones. The list is drawn from the approximately 11,500 U.S.-based privately held venture-backed companies in the Dow Jones Venture Source database as of June 30, 2012. Vidyo is one of only seven companies that have made the list all three years, since it was initiated in 2010.
“Venture capital investors aren’t just looking for successful companies; they are looking for explosive growth,” said Alan Murray, deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. “The Next Big Thing list highlights companies that have a chance of providing that kind of growth. They aren’t sure bets; they are high-risk but potentially high-reward enterprises.”
To be eligible for The Next Big Thing ranking, a company must have raised an equity round of financing in the three years ended June 30 and have a valuation of $1 billion or less. Since this resulted in a field of 5,943 potential candidates, Vidyo is among a very small, select group of privately-held companies named to this list of 50 companies.
“We are honored to be named for the third time in the Wall Street Journal’s Next Big Thing list,” said Ofer Shapiro, Vidyo’s co-founder and CEO. “Vidyo has changed the face of video communications with a new architecture that raised the bar for the industry. We have created new markets and delivered superior value, accessibility, and scalability to our customers; our technology is applicable to every company in the world.”
Since March 2011, when Vidyo was last named a ‘Next Big Thing’ company, the market has continued to embrace its VidyoRouter architecture, and the company’s list of key global partners and customers has grown to include industry notables such as Philips, Ontario Telemedicine Network, Ricoh, American Well, BCS Global, UST Global, Rubbermaid, Chunghwa Telecom, Mitel and VMWare.
The Vidyo platform has won numerous awards and continues to be hailed by industry analysts and experts as being the most significant innovation to come along in the video conferencing market in decades. Vidyo was recently named a recipient of the World Economic Forum’s Tech Pioneer Award, a prestigious distinction given to only 23 companies selected from hundreds of global nominees that were identified for their potential to transform the future of business and society.
The Next Big Thing rankings were calculated based on how each company scored in each of the following five components:
- Board Ranking: the track record of success for the venture-capital investors who sit on the company’s board;
- Total Equity: the amount of capital raised by the company over the last three years, in comparison to its peers;
- Executive Ranking: the track record of success for the company’s founders and chief executive;
- Valuation Ranking: the recent growth in the value of the company;
- An editorial ranking: Dow Jones VentureWire reporters and editors reviewed and ranked the companies
The Vidyo Difference
The Vidyo communication and collaboration platform is software-based, highly flexible and can be easily customized for individual enterprise and vertical market video conferencing requirements. The patented VidyoRouter™ architecture introduces Adaptive Video Layering™, which dynamically optimizes the video for each endpoint leveraging H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC)-based compression technology and Vidyo’s IP.
Adaptive Video Layering eliminates the MCU and offers unprecedented error resiliency, low latency rate matching thus enabling natural, affordable, high-quality video to work over the Internet, LTE and 4G networks. The platform allows users to quickly leverage the latest hardware innovations and new consumer devices, making it uniquely attractive to partners. Vidyo has been active driving H.264 SVC and SIP videoconferencing interoperability in various standards bodies since 2005.