VXtreme Inc. was founded in 1995 to develop and market a complete software solution for high-quality business video over the Internet. The company's scalable software-only video solution allowed organizations to create and deliver high-quality, real-time Internet video without costly upgrades from existing computers and networks. VXtreme's product family consisted of the Web Theater Server, Web Theater Client, and Web Theater Producer.

VXtreme was born out of a Virtual Classroom project at Stanford University led by Anoop Gupta, a professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. At that time there were only a small group of companies working on streaming media led by Real Networks. Other founders included Diane Greene and Navin Chaddha.

In the summer of 1996, VXtreme signed its first major deal with CNNfn which represented a huge upset to the market leader, Real Networks. As a watershed moment in the industry^{[citation needed]} this immediately signified that VXtreme's products were ready to compete at the highest level.^{[dubious – discuss]} CNNfn utilized the software to produce the first automated archival system for broadcast content being encoded real time and made available on the Internet and ignited a race by other broadcasters to follow.