Smart Screen Exclusive

By Chris Tribbey

From a technology standpoint, Jeff Klugman, EVP and GM of products and revenue for TiVo, is no doubt excited about his company’s $135 million acquisition of Digitalsmiths, announced Jan. 29.

It hands the DVR operator a cloud-based content discovery company that already has relationships with seven of the top 10 American pay TV companies (reaching two-thirds of U.S. subscriber households); a metadata company that totals more than 11 million data sets; and a company that’s already delivering search, recommendations, discovery and browsing to a huge variety of devices (iOS, Android, Roku, Xbox, PlayStation, Kindle and set-tops).

“They’ve got great metadata, great application protocol interfaces designed for interfacing with that metadata, and they’re delivering that service over the cloud in a frictionless way for operators to come on board,” Klugman said. “These are all directions we have been heading, and this really helps us accelerate our activities. For us, it gives us a toe-hold in a really exciting part of the business, from a technology standpoint.”

But Digitalsmiths’ technology — a company’s whose cloud service managed nearly 150 transactions by the end of 2013 — was only a part of why San Jose-based TiVo went out and got the company, Klugman said.

“The other exciting thing for us is we’ve found great talent outside of Silicon Valley, and the environment that’s been built within this company is a phenomenal place for talent,” he said. “It’s increasingly competitive finding talent here in the Valley, and we’ve found an incredibly talented group in Digitalsmiths.”

Klugman singled out Digitalsmiths’ CEO Ben Weinberger and COO and CTO Matt Berry (both co-founders) as part of the reason Digitalsmiths will soon be a part of TiVo, helping it deploy cloud-based services and technologies to pat TV operators. Weinberger was so forward-thinking he started Digitalsmiths while still in college in Illinois over 15 years ago. Berry has built several technology companies from the ground up (after serving as an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army).

“I did a lot of due diligence with their customers, and the positive feedback, not just with their company, but with the intellectual capability of their people, was just off the charts,” Klugman said.

Tom Rogers, CEO and president of TiVo, made mention (in a statement regarding the acquisition) of the “expertise” his company was gaining with Digitalsmiths, beyond the data opportunities.

“Our acquisition of Digitalsmiths will expand TiVo’s role with tier-one U.S. service providers through its significant relationships,” he said. “We believe Digitalsmiths’ revenue growth trajectory and attractive margin structure can help accelerate TiVo’s long-term … growth.”