RYOT

Founded	2012
Founders	Bryn Mooser,David Darg, Martha Rogers,Molly DeWolf Swenson
Location	United States
Origins	Los Angeles
Key people	Bryn Mooser, David Darg, Molly Swenson, Martha Rogers, Gareth Seltzer
Parent organization	Yahoo Inc.
Subsidiaries	RYOT Studio, RYOT Films, RYOT Lab
Employees	70+
Website	www.ryot.org

RYOT/ˈraɪət/ (or, riot) was an American immersive media company founded in 2012 byBryn Mooser,David Darg,Molly DeWolf Swenson and Martha Rogers, based in Los Angeles. It specializes in documentary film production, commercial production,virtual reality andaugmented reality.

In April 2016, RYOT was acquired byHuffPost.^[1] In May 2021, RYOT was acquired byApollo Global Management alongside otherVerizon Media properties for $5 billion. The transaction was closed on September 1, 2021.^[2]

Bryn Mooser and David Darg met inHaiti during the weeks after theearthquake of January 2010. Both were in the country doing humanitarian work, Mooser withArtists for Peace and Justice, to build a school, and Darg withOperation Blessing, to build water and sanitation systems. After working alongside each other and becoming friends, Mooser and Darg had the idea to create abaseball league for the young boys of theTabarre neighborhood ofPort-au-Prince.^[3][4]

Soon after, Mooser and Darg returned home to America, brought on Molly DeWolf Swenson as COO, and launched RYOT News as “the first news site linking news to action.”^{[citation needed]}

Founding investors are Canadians Martha Rogers and Gareth Seltzer, and other notable funders include Todd Wagner and Jason Calacanis.^{[citation needed]}

Celebrity activistsOlivia Wilde,Ian Somerhalder, Ben Stiller andSophia Bush were early supporters of RYOT. Olivia Wilde and Elon Musk have been Executive Producers on multiple RYOT Films.^{[citation needed]}

Founding Directors of the company alongside Mooser and Darg were Stash Slionski and Stacey Leasca while the first reporters included Benjamin Roffee, Vanessa Black, Stefan Todorovic, Tyson Sadler and Christian Stephen.^{[citation needed]}

Mooser and Darg documented their work with the young boys in Haiti in theirTribeca award-winning filmBaseball in the Time of Cholera, which follows the rise of the Tabarre Tigers and the concurrent outbreak ofcholera in Haiti. The film played at film festivals and finished with a Congressional screening in Washington, D.C.^[5] A year later, Mooser and Darg, debuted their third film at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, a documentary short titledThe Rider and The Storm, which chronicles aNew Yorksurfer who lost everything in theBreezy Point fires duringHurricane Sandy.^[6][7][8]

Executive-produced byOlivia Wilde andPaul Allen,Body Team 12 profiles a youngLiberian health worker who collects the bodies of the dead inMonrovia at the height of theEbola outbreak in 2014. It debuted onHBO in February 2016.^[9]On Her Shoulders, a documentary about Nadia Murad's fight against ISIS, debuted in competition at Sundance Film Festival in January 2018, where it won a Directing award for a U.S. Documentary.^[10]

The Painter of Jalouzi was the first documentary to be shot entirely on aniPhone 6S Plus.^{[citation needed]}

RYOT began producing 360/VR videos for other media organizations, advertisers and nonprofits in 2015. In their first produced 360/VR films for partners such asThe New York Times,^[11]NPR,^[12]The Associated Press,^[13]Huffington Post^[14] andSierra Club.^[15]

RYOT is credited as the first company to capture in 360 video,1. An active war zone (Syria), a disaster zone (Nepal), underwater with wild dolphins (Bahamas), and is the first company to produce VR news and comedy series on a major network (Hulu).^{[citation needed]}

RYOT Studio is Verizon Media's in-house branded content agency.

RYOT Films creates content in traditional & immersive formats across film, TV, digital, and VR, producing content for clients.

RYOT Lab is Verizon Media's technology and innovation hub for emerging technologies, in partnership with Verizon Lab.^{[citation needed]}

RYOT Films was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) forBody Team 12 in January 2016.Body Team 12 was also honored at theTribeca Film Festival,^[16] the Mountainfilm Festival, thePalm Springs International Film Festival, and theAustin Film Festival for Best Documentary Short.^{[citation needed]}

Wikimedia Commons has media related toRYOT.

• Yahoo!
• 2016 mergers and acquisitions
• American news websites
• Internet-based activism

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