Razmig Hovaghimian

Razmig Hovaghimian
Born Cairo, Egypt
Residence San Francisco, California
Nationality American
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley (BA)
Stanford University (MBA)
Occupation CEO & co-founder, Viki
(2008-present)
Senior executive officer of global content, Rakuten
(2013-present)
Years active 2007–present

Razmig Hovaghimian is an American entrepreneur. He is co-founder and CEO of the international online streaming video site Viki, and senior executive officer of global content and a board observer at Rakuten. He is also a co-founder and board member of Embrace.

Early life and education

Hovaghimian was born in Cairo, Egypt, to Armenian parents. He moved to Los Angeles, California, by himself at the age of 16. Hovaghimian attended the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in political economy and minoring in business administration. After graduating, he spent time as a consultant at Mitchell Madison Group in the US and Europe, before relocating to Japan to work as a management consultant at ad agency Dentsu.[1][2] He returned to the US to attend the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received his MBA.[3]

Career

Embrace

While attending Stanford, after a summer spent working with the United Nations in South Sudan, Hovaghimian, Jane Chen, Rahul Panicker and Linus Liang founded Embrace, an affordable alternative to a premature infant incubator, designed specifically for infants in developing countries and isolated communities. It can be manufactured at a cost much lower than that of an incubator. Launched in 2011, the Embrace looks like a tiny sleeping bag, with an electric heater and a wrap for the infant to keep the temperature warm. It started as a class project, growing to a company based in 14 countries as of 2014.[1][4][5]

Embrace received an INDEX People's Choice Award, and in 2010 was selected as an Innovative Technology for Public Health by the World Health Organization.[5]

NBC Universal

In 2007, Hovaghimian went to work at NBCUniversal in the strategic planning group. By 2009, he was a senior vice president, as Viki, then a part-time project, continued to grow. Hovaghimian left NBC later that year to focus full-time on Viki.[1][3][6]

Viki

Hovaghimian is the co-founder and CEO of Viki, an international online video service that specializes in licensing television content for online distribution.[7][8] Initially called Viikii.net, the company was conceived with Changseong Ho and Jiwon Moon as a Stanford class project.[9][1] Viki gets its name from combining the words video and wiki.[10] It was originally created as a language-learning tool, helping its users learn languages by creating subtitles on online videos, before morphing into an international online video site, licensing content from countries across the globe, with subtitles crowd sourced from its international community of viewers and volunteer translators.[1][10][11]

In 2010, Hovaghimian incorporated Viki and moved to Singapore, where he set up the company's headquarters and hired its first engineers.[12] He chose Singapore for the company's headquarters in part due to its proximity to key Asian markets.[9] The company also maintains offices in San Francisco, Seoul and Tokyo.[13] The beta version of Viki.com was released in December 2010.[14] Also in 2010, Viki raised $4.3 million in Series A funding from investors including Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners, Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, Charles River Ventures and Joi Ito's Neotney Labs. At the time, it had 4 million active monthly users.[9][1][15] Later that year, Ho and Moon left Viki.[1] In 2011, the company raised an additional $20 million in Series B funding, led by SK Telecom and BBC Worldwide.[3] SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg and Sling Media founder Blake Kirkorian became strategic investors in 2013.[15]

Viki was acquired by Japanese e-commerce group Rakuten in September 2013 for approximately $200 million.[9][13] At the time, Viki had 22 million viewers per month, and over 200 different viewer countries in Europe, Asia, North America, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.[13][15][16] As of September 2014, Viki has 30 million unique viewers per month, and content translated into 200 languages.[17]

Rakuten

In December 2013, following its acquisition of Viki, Rakuten announced that Hovaghimian would become its senior executive officer of global content.[1][18] He oversees Rakuten's entire video content business worldwide, including Viki.com and Wuaki.tv, which airs paid premium content in Europe. He was also named an observer to Rakuten's board of directors.[19]

Investments

In 2014, Hovaghimian invested in Singapore-based web development platform Nitrous.IO.[20] Later that year, he invested in Envoy, a digital visitor registration app.[21]

Honors and awards

Filmography

Hovaghimian served as a producer on Ozuma, a 2012 Japanese anime television series based on the works of Leiji Matsumoto.[3] He has also helped to produce several short films, including Oh Lucy! which premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and received a second place Cinéfondation Award,[23] and received an honorable mention for Best International Short Film at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.[24]

Year Title Credited as Notes
2003 The Aura Producer Short film, dir. Armen Ohannesian
2010 Wake Co-producer Short film, dir. Atsuko Hirayangi
2012 Ozuma Executive producer Japanese anime TV series on WOWOW; 1 season (6 episodes)
2012 Mo ikkai Co-producer Short film, dir. Atsuko Hirayangi
2014 Oh Lucy! Executive producer Short film, dir. Atsuko Hirayangi

Personal life

Hovaghimian lives in San Francisco, California, with his wife and children.[12][25]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Willis Wee, “Razmig Hovaghimian: from failed pizza maker to founder of Viki,” Tech In Asia, April 21, 2014.
  2. ↑ “Razmig Hovaghimian,” Tech In Asia, January 29, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Gavin J. Blair, “Crowd-Sourced Online Video Site Viki Breaks Down Language Barriers,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 4, 2013.
  4. ↑ Rebecca Beyer, “Embrace by Jane Chen and Razmig Hovaghimian,” Borgen Magazine, September 12, 2013.
  5. 1 2 “Embrace,” extreme.stanford.edu. Accessed November 26, 2014.
  6. ↑ Grace Chng, “Viki points the way for S’pore start-ups,” AsiaOne, September 22, 2013.
  7. ↑ “Is Viki Better Than Netflix and Roku?” Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2014.
  8. ↑ Razmig Hovaghimian, “The Ring of Fire: Of Pirates, Popcorn Time and Dynamic Pricing,” TechCrunch, June 22, 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Newley Purnell, “Singapore Aims to Become Southeast Asia’s Silicon Valley,” Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2014.
  10. 1 2 Madison Park, “Can fans unravel the Babel of the world’s TV dramas?” CNN, June 9, 2014.
  11. ↑ Rose Eveleth, “Saving Languages Through Korean Soap Operas,” The Atlantic, September 23, 2014.
  12. 1 2 Tan Weizhen, “S’pore-based start-up sold for rumoured S$255m,” Today, September 3, 2013.
  13. 1 2 3 “Viki a good fit for Rakuten: CEO,” CNBC, September 3, 2013.
  14. ↑ Zac Bertschy, “Interview: Razmig Hovaghimian, Co-founder and CEO of Viki.com,” Anime News Network, April 25, 2012.
  15. 1 2 3 Kara Swisher, “Japan’s Rakuten Acquires Viki Video Site for $200 Million,” All Things Digital, September 1, 2013.
  16. ↑ Roger Yu, “American audiences: I want my international TV,” USA Today, March 21, 2013.
  17. ↑ Madhumita Venkataramanan, “Infographic: Where local TV gets seen overseas,” Wired, September 3, 2014.
  18. ↑ “Personnel Change Announcement,” Rakuten, December 19, 2013.
  19. 1 2 “Next Gen Innovators 2014,” Forbes, August 2014.
  20. ↑ Aviva Gat, “Nitrous.IO gets $6.65M and promises big announcements in the coming months,” Geektime, March 19, 2014.
  21. ↑ Jon Russell, “Envoy turns the cumbersome process of visitor registration into a sleek, digital experience,” The Next Web, September 16, 2014.
  22. ↑ “Panelist Spotlight: Razmig Hovaghimian, CEO and Co-Founder, Viki,” Television Asia, October 1, 2013.
  23. ↑ “Oh Lucy!” festival-cannes.com. Accessed November 26, 2014.
  24. ↑ Pete Hammond, “Toronto: ‘The Imitation Game’ Named Festival’s People’s Choice Winner – Oscar Harbinger?” Deadline.com, September 14, 2014.
  25. ↑ Executive Profile: Razmig Hovaghimian, Bloomberg Businessweek. Accessed November 26, 2014.
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