AT&T sells Quickplay to Firstlight Media

Firstlight Media is partnering with Highview Capital Partners to buy Quickplay, a company specializing in distributing video content to connected devices, from AT&T.

Firstlight, which runs a proprietary user engagement platform for OTT providers and content owners, will merge with Quickplay. Firstlight Founder and CEO André Christensen, who previous served as Quickplay’s chief operating officer and AT&T’s head of product development, will run the combined business, which will operate under the Firstlight name.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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“The ever-evolving content landscape is creating strong and increasing consumer demand for streaming video content – and content providers need to deliver a seamless viewing experience to keep their audiences engaged,” said Christensen in a statement. “With Quickplay’s best-in-class content delivery capabilities and Firstlight’s next-generation, AI-driven personalization and engagement software, the combined company will offer its customers a true carrier grade, tried and tested, ‘one stop shop’ solution suite for OTT premium video delivery. We are thrilled to bring Quickplay’s talented team of video engineers on board and look forward to working together to deepen relationships with our existing customers and expand our reach with new customers.”

AT&T completed its acquisition of Quickplay from Madison Dearborn Partners in 2016. At the time, Quickplay was the provider for AT&T’s U-verse TV Everywhere offering, and the company planned to have the technology support streaming offerings like DirecTV Now, DirecTV Mobile and DirecTV Preview.

AT&T’s video strategy and product lineup has changed dramatically since 2016. The company’s newly launched AT&T TV will be the primary linear TV product, and the upcoming HBO Max will be AT&T’s key subscription video service.