Twitch rival Caffeine welcomes $100m investment, Live Nation content

Caffeine, a new Twitch-like “social broadcasting platform” focused on sports, entertainment and videogaming/esports, has secured US$100 million in new investment and agreed a content partnership with Live Nation.

The funding round was led by 21st Century Fox (21CF), with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners. Caffeine Studios, a newly formed venture jointly owned by Caffeine and 21CF’s Fox Sports, will create content for the video platform – as will Live Nation, with which the start-up has partnered to stream concerts, starting in Q4 2018.

“We want to bring the world together around friends and live broadcasts,” says Ben Keighran, an Australian-born Apple TV designer and now the company’s CEO. “It’s an ambitious goal, but one we believe is attainable with the support of our amazing new partners, our awesome and ever-growing community and the content that together we can bring onto the platform.”

“We want to bring the world together around friends and live broadcasts”

“The combination of the Caffeine platform with a content studio that benefits from Fox Sports’ expertise in live events and programming will help position Caffeine to deliver compelling experiences in esports, video gaming and entertainment,” adds Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman of 21st Century Fox.

“We are excited to partner with Caffeine and build something special for fans in the growing live social streaming esports and gaming space.”

Caffeine, described as “a new kind of broadcast company”, hopes to snatch a dominant market position away from Amazon-owned Twitch, currently the platform of choice in the live-streaming video market, especially among videogamers. It was originally backed by $46m in two rounds of funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners.

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