Since acquiring multiple fast-growing media technology brands starting in 2021, Backlight has operated as a holding company with each acquisition largely being run as independent business units. Backlight’s new divisional structure aligns complementary teams and products around shared target markets, media workflows and customers, with the goal of driving innovation, customer success and continued growth.
“This new divisional org structure will enable Backlight to better serve our rapidly growing customer base with larger, aligned teams and differentiated, integrated solutions,” said Ben Kaplan, president and CEO of Backlight. “The complementary nature and strategic synergies of our different acquisitions were central to Backlight’s original strategy and have been proven out over the past 18 months. The entire Backlight team is excited about the value that this new organizational structure will drive for our customers.”
Backlight Creative provides award-winning creative collaboration software including secure and efficient media management, production tracking, and integrated review and approval tools. Creative and video teams in film, TV, gaming, agencies and their clients rely on Backlight Creative’s iconik, ftrack and Celtx product lines to streamline creative workflows and deliver their visions accurately, on time and on budget.
Media technology veteran Mike Green has been named the Divisional CEO of Backlight Creative after serving as Backlight’s Chief Growth Officer since September 2021. Prior to joining Backlight, Green held executive strategy, marketing and corporate development positions at Brightcove, as well as executive and management positions at Comcast, Collecta and Kaboose (now Disney). Green holds degrees from Brown University and Columbia Business School.
Backlight Streaming delivers leading cloud-native solutions for OTT streaming, video management, clip creation, hyper-distribution, and monetization from its Zype and Wildmoka product lines. Leading media publishers, content providers and broadcasters rely on Backlight Streaming’s full stack software solutions to ingest, transform, manage, distribute, and monetize live and on-demand video to connect content owners to all marketplaces globally.
Ed Laczynski and Cristian Livadiotti, both co-founders and CEOs of Zype and Wildmoka respectively, are now Divisional co-CEOs of Backlight Streaming. The two CEOs have a fundamental understanding of what the Zype and Wildmoka product lines can do together, while remaining completely modular, complementary and flexible. Both Laczynski and Livadiotti co-founded and led their companies prior to their acquisitions by Backlight in 2021.
Laczynski has more than 20 years of technology leadership experience having worked with companies like IPG/McCann-Erickson, and Datapipe (now Rackspace). Laczynski holds a degree from New York University. Livadiotti has 20 years of experience in the media and telecom domains, setting up ventures, projects and organizations both in startups and large multinationals environments. He holds degrees from École Polytechnique and Télécom Paris.
About Backlight
Backlight is a global media technology company that dramatically improves every stage of the video and entertainment content lifecycle - from creation through monetization. Backed by $200M in funding from PSG, Backlight has acquired six leading media software companies since launching in 2021. Video-forward organizations solve their mission-critical business and operational challenges by partnering with Backlight’s two divisions: Backlight Creative and Backlight Streaming. Backlight Creative provides award-winning software solutions for secure and efficient media management, production tracking and creative collaboration including iconik, ftrack and Celtx. Backlight Streaming delivers leading cloud-native solutions for OTT streaming, hyper-distribution and monetization from Zype and Wildmoka. For more information visit backlight.co.