Online video solutions and distribution company Elemental Technologies Inc. has been acquired by Amazon.com, Inc. division Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a figure believed to be $500 million.

Founded in 2006, Elemental is a leading supplier of software-defined video solutions for multiscreen content delivery.

The company claims to have pioneered the use of software-based video processing to distribute and monetize video over IP networks, providing flexibility, scalability and performance to transform high quality video into new revenue streams via turnkey, cloud-based and virtualized deployment models.

Elemental’s main Delta solution offers just-in-time packaging, origin services, intelligent caching, dynamic ad insertion and replacement, and end-to-end encrypted content protection functions, while their video delivery platform offers media companies and content distributors a reduction in CDN cost and complexity.

The service is popular with pay TV operators, content programmers, broadcasters and enterprise customers who are able to use Elemental’s services to bring video to any screen, anytime – all at once.

Elemental says that it serves over 700 media franchise customers and powers some of the world’s most popular over-the-top TV (OTT) applications, like the BBC’s iPlayer, CNNGo, ESPN ScoreCenter, HBO GO, MSNBC Shift, and Sky Go and Sky Now.

“Elemental shares Amazon’s passion for invention and putting the customer first,” Senior Vice President of Amazon Web Services Andy Jassy said in a statement. “Together, we’ll collaborate on deeper technology integrations and new infrastructure offerings so that media and entertainment companies can evolve their hybrid and cloud models as they continue to innovate their services for viewers.”

AWS expansion

The acquisition of Elemental may help AWS expand beyond the public cloud and into on-premises data centers.

“Today’s announcement will allow us to work even more closely together to provide media companies with a family of on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-based solutions for Internet-based video delivery,” Chief Evangelist at Amazon Web Services Jeff Barr said in a post to the AWS blog.

Elemental had raised $44.1 million over five rounds prior to acquisition, with its most recent round of $14.5 million having occurred in December 2014.

Investors included Telstra, Sky PLC, General Catalyst Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Voyager Capital, Steamboat Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Alliance of Angles, Oregon Angle Fund and Bend Venture Conference.

The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Image credit: screenshot/ Elemental Technologies.