Live streaming company Kamcord announced a $10 million USD Series C led by Time Warner, a US-based global leader in media and entertainment. Other participants in the round include previous investors Tencent, TransLink Capital, XG Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures and Wargaming. The latest injection values Kamcord at more than $100 million USD.
The company is hoping to capture two booming trends from China this year: gaming and live streaming.
Kamcord, with its major focus in gaming broadcasting, provides a software developer kit (SDK) so that players can record their game play. In December 2014, Y Combinator graduate Kamcord raised a $15 million USD from Tencent, billion-dollar Japanese gaming firm GungHo to cement their move into the Asian market.
The company revealed last June that China, Japan and South Korea make up 50 percent of mobile gaming revenue and have been investing heavily in China since 2015. It is estimated that China will overtake the US as the world’s largest mobile gaming market in 2016, according to the Global Mobile Game Confederation.
As citizen broadcasters gathered on Kamcord, the company added different categories including fashion, music, and even ‘Tinder’ to its category list.
The main difference between Kamcord and other global broadcasting channels such as Youtube and Twitch is that Kamcord pays their broadcasters, through a ‘virtual goods’ feature. Viewers can pay money to broadcasters, that is then split between the company and the broadcaster.
The live streaming market is known as a good money making business in China. A flock of Chinese tech companies, including YY Music and Momo, also use virtual goods features to allow fans to engage with performers through their respective apps. Last month, Twitch-like DouyuTV was valued at $100 million USD by Tencent and live streaming service YiLive received a 30 million RMB ($4.6 million USD) series A.
Image Credit: Kamcord