Sorenson CEO Peter Csathy Goes Hollywood to Lead Manatt Venture Fund

Carlsbad, CA-based Sorenson Media CEO Peter Csathy tells me he’s left Sorenson to become CEO of Manatt Digital Media Ventures, a venture fund and digital media business created by the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips law firm in Los Angeles.

The venture will operate as part of Manatt Digital Media, making the California law firm a one-stop shop for full-service legal and business consulting services for clients in entertainment, advertising, and digital media industries. Csathy, a serial entrepreneur and one-time media lawyer “will draw upon his experience as a successful operator and media industry executive to provide strategic business counsel, mentoring, deal-making, and evaluation of potential opportunities,” according to a statement from the Manatt law firm.

Csathy’s move might lead to good things for Sorenson, though. Csathy says he will continue to serve on the board of Sorenson Media, and is actively involved in the search for a new CEO. The founder and former CEO, Jim Sorenson, will serve as interim CEO during the search.

Manatt Digital Media plans to leverage its industry relationships with clients that range from entertainment industry “superstars” and public media companies to startups and growth-stage technology companies. Manatt says its clients “will benefit from the firm’s unrivaled access to artists, deal-making prowess and proven litigation experience, focused on protecting innovation, defending brands and mitigating risk.”

Before joining Sorenson, Csathy led several high-growth digital media ventures, including SightSpeed (acquired by Logitech in late 2008), MusicMatch (acquired by Yahoo in 2004), and eNow (acquired by AOL-TimeWarner in 2006).

Streaming media has grown exponentially in recent years, and providers of online video technology have shifted to providing cloud-based online video platforms. Sorenson has grown under Csathy—the company now has strategic partnerships with Shutterfly, Sony, Avid, and RealNetworks. But such rivals as Brightcove, Ooyala, and Kaltura continue to account for a big share of an increasingly crowded market.

While Sorenson operates its own successful managed video hosting and delivery technology, Csathy has written that it is only one component of Sorenson’s overall business model, which is focused on providing comprehensive video encoding and transcoding for enterprise customers.

“Think of us as a video-focused Accenture,” Csathy wrote in a 2011 Sorenson blog. “Enterprise customers come to us with real significant and challenging problems; we are consultative in our approach; we listen; we hear; we propose a solution to meet those needs; we build it; and we manage and service it; THAT is who we are.”

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.