Vitec creates global IPTV and digital signage powerhouse in Exterity acquisition

Vitec has announced the strategic acquisition of Exterity Ltd, signalling the French developer’s intention to accelerate growth and strengthen its leadership position, with natural technology and customer synergies between the two companies. As a global leader in IP video streaming solutions for broadcast, military and government, corporate, sports and entertainment venues, Vitec can now extend its reach into new geographies, market verticals and partners.

“Exterity is a respected IPTV and Digital Signage leader around the globe,” commented Vitec CEO Philippe Wetzel. “As a market leader, they have developed a robust IP video platform for both hardware and software that has been very successful, particularly in the enterprise and accommodation markets across Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Exterity’s engineering excellence, global geographic distribution and complementary business focus was the primary motivation for Vitec to make this acquisition. The combined entity will be the leading IPTV and digital signage provider for corporate, government, military, venues, hospitality and broadcast customers.”

Founded 20 years ago in Scotland, Exterity has experienced phenomenal growth during the past five years, extending its global reach with offices in London, New York, Paris, Johannesburg, Dubai, Riyadh, Singapore and Sydney. CEO Colin Farquhar will remain a central part of the leadership team of the combined company. “In bringing together Vitec and Exterity, we will be able to offer a wider range of best-in-class products, solutions and services to our customers,” commented Farquhar on the acquisition. “Vitec’s product portfolio, market strength and company culture are the perfect fit for this next chapter in our IPTV growth and I have complete confidence that we will be able to grow stronger together as more and more businesses deploy IP video streaming solutions across their enterprises. Exterity has established a large and loyal customer and partner base, with a number of organisations specifying solutions for global projects. Bringing together Vitec and Exterity enables us to take advantage of our combined technologies so that our customers will have a broader choice of market-leading IP video solutions to suit their needs.”

The combined engineering teams will develop a strategy to migrate the existing IPTV and digital signage portfolio into a converged platform to offer a wider range of solutions to customers. Now numbering almost 200 engineers across their global development centres, Vitec and Exterity will immediately begin working together to fully realise the software and hardware expertise of the embedded teams. Vitec is also connecting with Exterity’s broad network of integrators and partners to provide more information about the combined capabilities of the companies and to ensure their continuity of business strategy and deployments. Vitec will continue to support Exterity customers without interruption.