Nanocosmos

History and Founding

Nanocosmos began in 1998 as a Berlin-based developer of MPEG compression software, launched products such as MPEG SoftEngine and nanoPEG, and achieved real-time MPEG-1 encoding on standard PCs. During the 2000s, it created the nanoPEG Editor. The 2010s saw a shift to mobile and multi-platform streaming toolkits, including one of the first live broadcast apps for NBC Universal. A decisive innovation came in 2015 with H5Live, a technology that delivered ultra-low-latency playback in all browsers without plugins. This allowed nanocosmos to position itself as a real-time streaming pioneer. By the 2020s it had scaled to 24/7 global operations with 100% uptime and won the BAM Award at IBC 2023.

Business Model

Nanocosmos operates a white-label, fully managed platform that combines streaming infrastructure and cloud production. Customers pay for usage of the nanoStream CDN and transcoding services, as well as nanoStudio's production features. The company targets verticals where streaming failure is a business risk, such as iGaming (live dealer games, virtual sports), corporate events, live auctions, education, and sports. It emphasizes a partnership approach with expert onboarding and 24/7 support rather than a self-service-only model. The company is privately held and debt-funded, with no public funding rounds.

Core Products

nanoStream is the core streaming infrastructure: it includes a purpose-built global CDN, multi-protocol ingest (RTMP, SRT, WebRTC), adaptive bitrate transcoding, Media over QUIC (MOQ) transport for smooth delivery on poor networks, AI-powered live captions and translation, real-time analytics, and robust security. nanoStudio enables cloud-based production without dedicated hardware, allowing users to add branding, lower thirds, and multi-brand outputs via a chroma-key feature from a single incoming feed. The historical H5Live technology (2015) was foundational for the platform's ultra-low-latency browser playback. The umbrella brand nanoStream Cloud unifies both products into a self-service dashboard and API.

Market Position and Competitors

Nanocosmos competes with platforms such as Red5 Pro, Wowza, and Amazon IVS but differentiates through its focus on ultra-low latency (sub-second) combined with integrated cloud production capabilities. Its MOQ implementation was first-to-market for live streaming. The company serves notable clients like Vertical Loto in Brazil's live gaming sector and Get Visual for global corporate events. Customer testimonials highlight reliability and real-time performance in high-stakes environments.

Key Leadership

Oliver Lietz, co-founder, serves as CEO (Managing Director). He incorporated the company in 1998 with Werner Hamann. Werner Hamann is a co-founder but no current executive role is publicly stated. Other C-level positions (CTO, COO, CFO) were not confirmed in the available sources. The company's leadership team is small, reflecting its 11–50 employee headcount.