Discl: Held IRL and in SM

There is good value monitoring Tony Abrahams' Linked In as his announcements platform.

I can't confess to clearly understand what Playbox Neo is, even after my buddy Chat spat out the info below.

While there is no indication of deal size, I think it is a really good real example of AIM's value proposition, moat, combo of Text + Recorded + Voice product strategy, sticky SAAS revenue, European regulatory tailwind, all playing out in this single deal:

• AIM technical stack inside the PlayboxNeo technical stack - assuming PlayboxNeo feeds content to those ~20,000 channels live/recorded, AIM is plugged into that direct pipe, this could well be a moat inside a moat setup - very nice!
• Combo of Lexi Text, Recorded and Voice - the holy trinity of translation!
• New logo Europe customer with 23 human employees in 2023 who just added a no-human technical service to be European regulatory compliant
• 20,000 channels globally , 120 country reach - presents a really good upselling opportunity when AIM adds more countries to its capability - technically, they should be able to turn on each country as soon as AIM is country-ready
• Which translates into Lexi Network minutes + Lexi Text + Lexi Recorded + Lexi Voice minutes.

PLAYBOX NEO DEAL

A new deal with PlayBox Neo was announced 2 days ago.

Key components included:

• ALTA 2110 IP Encoder – Supports SMPTE ST 2110 workflows, delivering same-language and translated captions with ultra-low latency.
• LEXI Text – Automated captions with broadcast-grade accuracy, powered by AI-Media’s Topic Models for speaker names, technical terminology, and brand-specific language.
• LEXI Recorded – Pre-recorded captions produced in less than half the program runtime.
• LEXI Voice – Real-time multilingual voice translation for live and on-demand content, extending reach globally.

WHO/WHAT IS PLAYBOX NEO

Products & Services

• PlayBox Neo is a company that builds broadcast / media-playout / playout automation / channel branding and streaming solutions. Key offerings include:
• Channel-in-a-Box systems, which integrate several functions needed to run a channel: playout automation (AirBox Neo), live ingest (Capture Suite), scheduling (ListBox), graphics (TitleBox Neo), etc. 
• Cloud2TV: a cloud-based virtual playout / cloud playout solution enabling remote operations / flexibility
• Media Gateway: for routing, encoding & decoding, especially in IP / hybrid SDI-IP workflows
• Capture Suite: for live ingest / content acquisition. 
• TitleBox Neo / graphics solutions: for interactive graphics, channel branding, overlay, etc. 
• Support services: 24/7 customer support, technical maintenance, software upgrades (ASM&TS – Annual Software Maintenance & Technical Support) etc

They provide solutions in hardware, but also software, and as “hardware or as a service” / cloud models.

They serve a broad set of types of TV/branding/plublic/OTT channels: free-to-air, FAST, local channels, corporate channels, satellite, etc.

Customers/channels/reach

They report powering over 20,000 TV and branding channels worldwide.

The geographic reach is “over 120 countries”.

So their “customer base” is fairly large in terms of channel deployments, though the exact number of unique customers (companies) is much lower.

Revenue

This is where public information is more limited. I found some clues, but no reliably confirmed figure for total annual revenue.

• The company has said it had a “record year with increased revenue growth” as of 2024. 
• It is described in various sources (e.g. Tracxn) as an unfunded company, meaning it has not raised external investment. 
• The number of employees: about 27 employees in 2023 (according to EMIS for the Bulgarian entity). 
• Company is based in Sofia, Bulgaria.