Watching a football match used to mean picking one broadcast and hoping you didn’t miss the action elsewhere. Today, fans can watch multiple camera angles at once, chat live with other viewers, predict the next goal, and earn rewards without ever leaving the stream.
That experience wasn’t built in Silicon Valley. It came from Miami.
For Giovanni Punzo, founder and CEO of Streann, this summer’s FIFA World Cup marked a major milestone for the company, whose technology powered interactive viewing experiences for broadcasters including Univision.
“It’s been first of all a record World Cup for us,” Punzo told Refresh Miami. “It’s been amazing.”
Through Streann’s technology, viewers could switch between player cameras, coach views, and multiple live matches while participating in polls, prediction games, chats, and rewards programs. The project marked the company’s third World Cup, but Punzo said this tournament highlighted a clear shift in viewing habits.
“During the day, mobile was being used the most… and then at night, it would still be mobile, but a huge increase in Android TV devices,” he said. “The behavior also, how people consume content, has been fascinating to watch.”
Streann licenses its technology to broadcasters through long-term enterprise agreements. For viewers, the experience is seamless. On Univision’s ViX app, for example, fans simply tap a “Watch in Multiview” button to launch Streann’s software.
“Nobody has this in the world,” Punzo said of the platform’s ability to display up to nine simultaneous live feeds. “Live is not easy to manage.”
The company’s goal is to solve a growing problem for streaming platforms: keeping viewers engaged.
“The innovation that comes out from all of this is that now we’re engaging the screen,” Punzo said. “Before, you were only watching.”
Artificial intelligence has become central to that strategy. AI moderates live chats, filters inappropriate content, and helps broadcasters avoid hiring large moderation teams. The company has also integrated AI across its development process, reducing its workforce from roughly 70 employees to 20 while continuing to grow.
“We’ve become more efficient, more focused,” Punzo said.
Streann is also expanding beyond live sports. The company recently introduced Story67, an agentic AI platform that helps creators, production companies, and media companies generate films, trailers, and vertical video content.
“We believe that vertical content is gonna start taking over regular horizontal,” Punzo said. “When you lower the cost of production and increase content creation, there’s a revolution there.”
Despite AI’s rapid rise, Punzo believes one challenge remains largely unsolved: helping creators own their audiences instead of relying entirely on social media platforms.
“I still see creators being very dependent on social media,” he said. “We’re trying to give them tools so that they can become less dependent on social media.”
For Streann, that means building platforms that give customers access to first-party audience data instead of leaving those relationships in someone else’s hands.
“When we say we have 100 million viewers, we know we have first-party data about every single one of them,” Punzo said. “That’s why building your own platform has its advantages.”
While Miami’s creator economy continues to expand, Punzo believes there’s still room for the city to become a larger center for film and media production. Streann hopes to be part of that future.
After helping reshape how millions experienced the World Cup, the company is already looking ahead to the Pan American Games, where it plans to roll out another generation of interactive streaming experiences. For Punzo, watching has never been the end goal. Participation is.
Pictured above: Streann founder and CEO Giovanni Punzo, at rights, with Miami Downtown Development Authority team members.
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