Support Partners

What Support Partners does

Support Partners is a privately held, founder-led AI-native content operations consultancy and platform vendor founded in 2003 by Harry Grinling. The company serves content-intensive enterprises across media and broadcasting, sports leagues and teams, studios and streamers, creative agencies and brands, and adjacent enterprise verticals — helping these organizations operationalize AI inside real production workflows rather than treating AI as a standalone tool layer.

The company's product portfolio is organized into four interconnected pillars, all built natively on Microsoft Azure. AIR Fusion is a content intelligence platform that builds semantic understanding across an organization's content estate, providing AI-powered search, automated enrichment (scene detection, object identification, OCR, transcription, contextual tagging), and conversational workflows on top of Azure OpenAI. AIR Spaces provides elastic, cloud-native virtual workstations, burst-to-cloud GPU capacity, and secure collaboration infrastructure. Catalyst is the strategic advisory and technology acceleration professional services engagement layer. AIR Assist delivers managed operations covering platform monitoring, AI model operations, Azure cost optimization, and adoption support.

Go-to-market is exclusively enterprise field sales via a consultative discovery-led motion, with multi-year contracts and quote-based pricing (no public price list). The company operates from London (European HQ), New York (East Coast), and Scottsdale (West Coast), maintaining a Microsoft co-sell relationship as a certified Microsoft Solutions Partner in Telecommunications/Media AI and an Adobe Video Solution Partner. Revenue is generated through a hybrid of professional services fees (Catalyst), managed services (AIR Spaces, AIR Assist), and subscription recurring revenue (AIR Fusion). Named enterprise customers include BBC, ITV, London Live, Comic Relief, BCG, McCann Worldgroup, Render Brew, and USAGM.

Name

Support Partners

Legal name

Support Partners

Website

https://support-partners.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Support Partners is a privately held Microsoft Azure-native consultancy and platform vendor that helps content-intensive enterprises across media, sports, studios, and creative agencies operationalize AI in production workflows through its AIR Fusion, AIR Spaces, Catalyst, and AIR Assist product pillars.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Media Production Technology Consulting

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)

SIC

Services-Allied To Motion Picture Production (7819), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Remote Workstations & Virtual Desktops for Media (GPU VDI, secure access) (MPAHANAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Remote Review, Approval & Dailies (screening, annotations, version compare) (MPAHANAB), AI Application Enablement Platforms (Copilot/Agent Frameworks, SDKs) (HDAEANAJ), AI Integration & Orchestration Platforms (Connectors, Workflow, iPaaS for AI) (HDAEANAI)

Keywords

• Media production consulting
• Cloud content operations
• AI content intelligence
• Azure virtual production
• Microsoft platform services

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Professional Services - Catalyst: Strategy, architecture, workflow design, and change planning engagements that move AI from pilot to operational reality. Includes discovery sprints, pilot-to-production paths, and executive steering engagements.
2. AIR Spaces - Managed Infrastructure: Elastic cloud production infrastructure for editing, rendering, collaboration, and secure content handling delivered as a fully managed service. Provides virtual workstations, burst GPU capacity, and secure collaboration on Azure.
3. AIR Fusion - Content Intelligence Platform: Content intelligence platform providing semantic understanding, AI-powered search, automated enrichment, and conversational workflows within governed operations.
4. AIR Assist - Managed Operations: Ongoing managed services covering platform monitoring, AI model operations, cost optimization, and adoption support to sustain platform value after implementation.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Support Partners provides AI-native content operations solutions built on Microsoft Azure, combining proprietary platforms (AIR Fusion for content intelligence and AIR Spaces for elastic cloud production infrastructure) with strategic advisory (Catalyst) and managed operations (AIR Assist) services. The company helps content-intensive organisations operationalise AI inside real production workflows, unlocking value from existing Microsoft investments rather than adding new tool layers.

Product overview

Support Partners offers a four-pillar AI-native content operations platform built entirely on Microsoft Azure. The portfolio consists of four interconnected products: (1) AIR Fusion — a content intelligence platform providing semantic understanding, AI-powered search, automated enrichment, and conversational AI workflows; (2) AIR Spaces — elastic, cloud-native virtual workstations and burst GPU capacity for production environments; (3) Catalyst — professional services covering strategic advisory, workflow design, architecture, and AI acceleration; and (4) AIR Assist — managed operations covering monitoring, optimisation, and governance after launch. Together these form a continuous cycle where better infrastructure fuels richer intelligence, which drives smarter decisions and optimised operations.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• AIR Fusion: Content Intelligence platform that builds semantic understanding across entire content estate, powering AI search, automated enrichment, and conversational workflows. Built on Azure, governed from day one.
• AIR Spaces
• Catalyst
• AIR Assist

Quantifiable outcome

• 50% reduction in infrastructure costs
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability12 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• MicrosoftcoreTechnology or IntegrationPrimary technology partner providing the platform foundation (Azure, Fabric, Purview, Microsoft 365, Azure OpenAI Service) for all proprietary solutions. Certified as Microsoft Solutions Partner - Telecommunications/Media AI and Microsoft Partner. All four service pillars (AIR Fusion, AIR Spaces, Catalyst, AIR Assist) are built natively on Microsoft Azure.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves3 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Signiant: Provides intelligent file transfer and media workflow automation for content-intensive enterprises. Comparable because it sits inside the same media content supply chain that AIR Fusion and AIR Spaces support.
• EditShare: Offers media storage, asset management, and collaborative editing/workflow software for broadcast and post-production. Overlaps with AIR Spaces on production infrastructure and with AIR Fusion on asset intelligence for media organizations.
• Iconik: Cloud-native media asset management platform with AI-powered search and automation. Directly comparable to AIR Fusion's content intelligence and search capabilities for media teams.
• Square Box Systems (Masstech): Provides media asset management and workflow solutions for broadcasters and content owners. Overlaps with AIR Fusion on asset intelligence and with AIR Spaces on broadcast production storage.
• Veritone: AI platform for media with cognitive services including transcription, object detection, and content discovery. Comparable to AIR Fusion's multimodal AI capabilities and media customer base.
• Sohonet: Provides networking, cloud, and collaboration solutions specifically built for media and entertainment production workflows. Direct comparable because it serves the same broadcast and studio customers with managed infrastructure and media-grade connectivity.
• Perforce (P4/Helix Core): Version control and digital asset management software widely used in media, gaming, and VFX. Comparable because it serves studios and creative teams managing large content estates, similar to AIR Fusion's governance and AIR Spaces' collaboration use cases.

Emerging players

• CoreWeave: GPU cloud provider built on Kubernetes, commonly used for AI training, VFX rendering, and virtual production. Overlaps with AIR Spaces' burst GPU capacity and renders-as-a-service use cases for Render Brew and similar customers.
• Bitmovin: Video encoding and player technology for streaming platforms and broadcasters. Adjacent because it operates in the media distribution workflow that Support Partners' studio and broadcaster customers run.

Broad incumbents

• Wasabi Technologies: Cloud object storage provider with strong adoption in media and entertainment for primary and archive storage. Adjacent to AIR Spaces' storage and infrastructure layer but broader and non-specialized.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@airfusionai
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/support-partners
• Xx.com/supportpartners

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Support Partners