Fastest growing streamer platform expands with new funding and new tools to increase live video creator fame and fortune through production, merchandising, media, and brand partnerships
StreamElements, the fastest growing production platform for live-streaming, used by more than 200,000 live channels on Twitch and YouTube Live, announced it has raised $11.3 million in Series A funding led by Pitango VC and previous investors State of Mind Ventures, Rainfall VC, Samsung Next and others. The new funding comes on the heels of a year of tremendous growth for StreamElements, in which the company grew its user base by more than 600%. Donations to streamers grew to $15M and $1M delivered through brand partnerships. Based on the company’s current growth trajectory, StreamElements expects creator revenue to exceed $40M in 2019 alone. By the end of 2019, StreamElements predicts that it will become the dominant streamer production platform on Twitch.
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The company’s growth is due to its unique position in the industry as the best full-stack solution built to address the key components of helping streamers earn fame and fortune:
- Professional Production: Beautiful themes and overlays, customizable alerts, loyalty programs, tipping mechanisms, and Chat Bot community engagement, managed in the cloud, reducing setup time and adding flexibility and reliability for remote streaming.
- Multi-Channel Monetization: Revenue maximizing tipping, custom merchandising and brand partnerships, all with a dedicated brand sales and service team to provide content creators an opportunity to work with global brands for engaging influencer marketing campaigns.
- Legendary Service: Responsive, hands-on VIP support that provides streamers with personal, 24/7 support mechanisms, setup assistance, and direct connections with the StreamElements support team.
“Since our launch 18 months ago we proved that a full stack production and revenue generation platform is what live-streaming and e-sports really needs,” said Doron Nir, CEO of StreamElements. “This new funding round shows what people in our industry already know – this is the next frontier for online media. Its growing faster than anything we’ve seen, and the level of passion of the audience is unparalleled to anything else video entertainment has to offer.”
Or Perry, Co-Founder and Chief Streamer Officer added, “Live video content creators are some of the hardest working people in showbiz. They have massive audiences, huge followings, yet they make less than 20% of their true revenue potential. We are here to close this gap and help these talented creators materialize their full potential with our extraordinary level of service and the best production tools on the market.”
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StreamElements and its creator community partnered on successful marketing campaigns with companies like Red Bull, Sennheiser, Warner Brothers, Trojan, 7-11 and more. With this new funding, StreamElements is growing its global Brand Partnership team and is announcing the hire of Scott Clark as SVP, Head of Brand Partnership. Mr. Clark has more than 20 years of digital media experience, most recently leading North American sales and brand partnerships at Innovid, a leading video ad technology company.
“Brands are struggling to reach Millennials and Gen Z consumers through traditional advertising. This group represents major buying power and cultural authority, yet ad blocking is high, cable subscriptions are low, and media is extremely fragmented. Live streaming content, particularly in gaming and eSports, is fast becoming the entertainment vehicle of choice. By partnering with live streamers and their communities, brands see tremendous value and impact, well beyond that of traditional digital media and influencer marketing,” said Mr. Clark.
As a technology and service platform that is central to live streaming, StreamElements provides valuable marketing tools for the ecosystem at large. Brands, talent agencies, publishers, eSports teams, and influencer marketing firms can all benefit from these centralized solutions.
- Technology – Through its core production stack, StreamElements deploys and integrates brand assets, at scale, natively into the stream, the chat, and can directly measure community reach, response and impact.
- Reach – Representing 100k+ channels and 325mm+ views per month, StreamElements can identify talent trends, brand fit, and apply campaigns across a vast range of creators from mega stars down through the mid and long tail.
- Ad Formats – In addition to live reads and co-viewing experiences, StreamElements offers integrated formats such asThemes, Overlays, Chat Integrations, Polls, Custom Alerts, and Mini-Games that are native to the experience, 100% viewable, unblockable, with long screen time and high share of voice.
- Measurement – StreamElements has unique access to collect streaming data, views, viewership, location, sentiment, click tracking and more, enabling real time optimization and robust reporting and measurement.
- Service – Known for its legendary service, StreamElements provides full in-house creative services as well as campaign and account management, providing a true end-to-end solution for all facets of campaigns and sponsorships.
“As influencer marketing continues to be a key strategic pillar for our clients – we are always looking to find new and effective ways to engage communities and drive business results. StreamElements provides an innovative end-to-end solution that allows us to interact with our communities in a meaningful way at scale,” Keith Bishop, Vice President – Media, Liquid Advertising.
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Mr. Clark added, “The live streaming ecosystem on Twitch, YouTube and other channels is experiencing massive growth in audience, time spent, and content. Brands need to expand the scope of their influencer marketing initiatives to explore integrated sponsorships and advertising options with this community. StreamElements provides the standardization, service, scalable deployment, and accountability that brands and industry partners should expect.”