Prime Focus Technologies names Ankur Jain as VP, sales, for South Asia

Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology arm of Mumbai-based visual entertainment services company Prime Focus Ltd, has appointed Ankur Jain as its vice president- sales for the South Asia region. In his new role, Jain will lead business development and sales across segments like broadcast networks, government and service providers. He will also focus on strengthening key account relationships.

"South Asia region and especially India is an important market for PFT and having Jain onboard ensures that we further solidify and expand our presence in this market as we grow globally. His technology expertise and understanding of these markets is a perfect combination that bodes well both for our customers and business," said Ramki Sankaranarayanan, founder and CEO, PFT.

Jain has over 15 years of experience in the IT industry, and prior to joining PFT, he was heading the enterprise business unit of Oracle Corporation India. Before that, he was head- sales, premium enterprise solutions at SAP. He had earlier also worked with companies like Lodha, Vmoksha Technologies, Satyam Computer Services Ltd, and Intentia. An alumnus of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Jain also holds a BE degree from University of Mumbai.

"PFT is operating in an exciting space and the company's CLEAR Media ERP suite is a cloud product that can bring business value to content enterprises. I'm positive that the South Asia market with its well established media & entertainment organisations will provide opportunities for PFT and we will be able to replicate our India success story here," said Jain.

PFT offers CLEAR, which is a web-based media asset management service to help film studios, broadcasters and advertisers manage their content and workflows more efficiently. It also manages the entire lifecycle of content from production to distribution, and offers a digital delivery platform for advertising and entertainment content.

The company works with major content owners like Bloomberg, Disney, Warner Bros., STAR TV, ZEE TV, 20th Century Fox Television Studios, EROS International, SONY Music, Viacom 18, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and Hindustan Unilever Ltd, among others.

In April this year, PFT raised Rs 45 crore from a diverse base of high net-worth individuals (HNIs) through a private placement of optionally convertible debenture (OCDs). The investors will have an option to convert up to 25 per cent of the total principal amount or around Rs 11 crore into equity of PFT after two years. The firm said this puts a base equity valuation of PFT at Rs 1,100 crore ($183 million). This means the unnamed investors may get around 1 per cent stake for part conversion of the OCDs.

During the same time, PFT also acquired US-based DAX LLC, a provider of cloud-based production workflow and media asset management applications, for $9.1 million in a performance-linked transaction. As a part of the deal, Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of DAX, became the president and is a part of the executive leadership team at PFT responsible for North America.