Lightstream Announces $8M in Series A Funding, Will Expand Abroad
Chicago-based live video startup Lightstream announced that it's taken in $8 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Drive Capital. Drive, MK Capital, and Pritzker Group contributed $6 million of the total, while Silicon Valley Bank ponied up the rest. Lightstream has taken in $9.8 million in funding since it launched in 2015.
Lightstream's products make it easy for social live streamers to present a professional experience to their followers, letting them to stream live on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and Mixer from any location. Lightstream Studio is meant for personal chat shows, while Lightstream Prism lets up to four gamers take part in a live multistream broadcast.
The company really started to grow in April 2018, after forming an exclusive partnership with Mixer, Microsoft's streaming platform. Microsoft integrated Lightstream Server into the Xbox and Windows native broadcasting software, leading to Lightstream quadrupling its audience of video creators in one year.
Lightstream will use the funding to hire a chief technology officer (Jenny Farver), who will grow the engineering team to support the company's rapid growth. It will also expand internationally.
"We are also able to globally expand by making all platforms accessible to content creators in SEA and South America in 2019," says Lightstream CEO Stu Grubbs. "Lightstream currently is available (has servers) in North America and throughout Europe. Additionally, we will be partnering/acquiring tools that will offer content creators using the Lightstream Studio platform to understand their audience/viewers and support those content creators on ways to continue their growth and monetization."
The company also plans to launch tools for brands and developers later this year.
As part of the Series A round, Andy Jenks, a general partner with Drive Capital, is joining the Lightstream board.
Photo: Lightstream CEO Stu Grubbs provided a demo of Studio, the company's cloud-based live streaming platform, at CES.
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