VC Deals Only: Restream raises $50M to help creators program and ...

VC Deals Only: Restream raises $50M to help creators program and ...: Live streaming of video has come into its own during the coronavirus pandemic, with services like Zoom, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and many o...

Restream raises $50M to help creators program and stream to multiple platforms

Live streaming of video has come into its own during the coronavirus pandemic, with services like Zoom, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and many others giving people a way to stay connected with each other, run events and continue working even when they can not be in the same physical spaces together.

Now, a startup called Restream, which has built a platform to help those who want to stream to more than one place simultaneously, is announcing a big round of funding on the heels of seeng its business boom 300% in the last eight months. The Austin-based startup has raised $50 million, a Series A co-led by Sapphire Ventures and Insight Partners.

Alex Khuda, CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch in an interview that Restream is not disclosing its valuation with this round, except to note that it is definitely higher than the modest $17.8 million (per pitch book) valuation it reached when it announced a seed round in 2018.

The startup was bootstrapped for several years before that and has been profitable almost from the start. Khuda said that this latest, large round of funding was raised in fact not for current operations, but to take the business into newer areas.

Specifically, it will be used to help fuel the launch of Restream Studio, a platform for creators to do more production around their videos: for example, writing captions and lower-thirds, adding watermarks, managing chats, and editing and repurposing excerpts of streams on other channels, and managing analytics. Think of it as the Hootsuite of video streaming.

It will also go towards expanding with more localised servers in a wider set of markets to manage the content that it carries.

Restream today covers some 30 streaming platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube, and lets people also take video from platforms like Zoom and rebroadcast it to platforms for bigger audiences. It operates on a freemium model, with the majority of customers using the free tier and others paying between $19 and $299 per month depending on the level of service.

The company had its start in the world of gaming but today also caters to a wider range of creators, musicians and businesses that use the service both to manage internal and B2B communications as well as their wider marketing efforts. Some of the high profile organizations that have used it include the World Health Organization, which ran its One World: Together at Home charity concert on the platform to shore up spirits at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and had some 270 million viewers.

Indeed, for all the negative aspects of the pandemic, it’s been a boost to the streaming industry’s business, and no less so Restream’s business: the company hit 750 million monthly views in July. Other big-name customers include Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra, Microsoft, Redhat, SalesForce and Ubisoft.

And what’s particularly interesting is how the company — which numbers just 45 people — has been managing all of that work remotely: no one is going into the office at the moment. And I have to point out it looked like Khuda’s interview with me was being done in a closet (a large closet, I should add).

“We all sleep less,” Khuda, who is originally from Ukraine but now lives in Austin, said with a smile. “All of the team works remotely because we want to try to keep everyone safe. When it comes to tech our people who are responsible for dev ops and reliability, they have always been remote.” He said that the aim is to build tech to automate as much as possible, “so that they never come back to the same thing.”

While live-streaming was shaping up to be a big business already — and companies like Vimeo were also offering a route to rebroadcasting — we’re seeing ever more companies moving deeper in to the space to meet the demand and opportunity from the market today. Just yesterday, we reported on how Spotify is also preparing a virtual event streaming service at the same time that a number of other music services are also launching their own live event streaming platforms.

The big question will be whether longer term we continue to see a proliferation of content across multiple places, or whether streaming companies — hoping to bring more viewers to their own platforms and to further differentiate themselves — push for more exclusivity rather than something that everyone can see anywhere. While this might happen, Khuda said he believes there will always be a market for those who want to be everywhere, and that this ultimately is a better business model for most people, not the select few.

“Mixer was an example of where exclusivity was applied but then suddenly those who used it had to find a new place to broadcast and build audience,” he said referring to the closure of Microsoft’s streaming service for gamers. “It’s a good lesson to not keep all your eggs in one basket.”

But the other big opportunity is also in how Restream is widening out to more than just gaming and entertainment.

“Restream’s 300% growth since January illustrates the value of their software for Fortune 500 companies to be able to communicate directly to their audiences in today’s virtual world,” said Teddie Wardi, MD at Insight Partners, in a statement. “Starting with the gaming community, Alex and Andrew quickly recognized the potential for Restream’s technology to engage audiences in a variety of settings and scale their platform globally. Now, with their suite of leading-edge streaming tools such as schedule, chat, and analytics, global brands and content creators are able to seamlessly connect and communicate with their audiences. We are excited to partner with Restream at this exciting time as they launch Restream Studio and continue to expand their product offerings.”

And while it’s not always the case that early movers are winners, in the case of Restream it helped them carve out a market position that they are able to keep by continuing to innovate on their technology.

“Long before remote work and life became the norm, Restream’s multistreaming platform had become essential to many creators, companies, entertainers, influencers and anyone that needs to broadcast to wide audiences across social channels such as Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and more,” said Paul Levine, a partner at Sapphire Ventures. “In just a few years, co-founders Alex Khuda and Andrew Surzynskyi built a product that’s become a valuable tool for content creators and marketers to maximize the audience for their live video. Accelerated by COVID, I believe Restream has a significant market opportunity, and I’m excited to partner together on the journey ahead.”

Both VCs are joining the board with this round.

Source: TechCrunch, Ingrid Lunden, August 27, 2020

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VC Deals Only: Dexterity exits stealth with $56.2M raised for its...

VC Deals Only: Dexterity exits stealth with $56.2M raised for its...: Dexterity emerged from stealth this week to announce its full-stack solution aimed at creating collaborative robotics systems. The hardware...

Dexterity exits stealth with $56.2M raised for its collaborative warehouse robots

Dexterity emerged from stealth this week to announce its full-stack solution aimed at creating collaborative robotics systems. The hardware-software system is designed for a variety of different tasks, including bin picking and box packing, targeted at warehouse fulfillment and logistics needs.

The Bay Area-based startup has already built up significant support from the investment world, with $56.2 million raised to date, from a long list of backers, including Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Obvious Ventures, Pacific West Bank, B37 Ventures, Presidio (Sumitomo) Ventures, Blackhorn Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures and Stanford StartX.

The company was founded back in 2017 as an extension of CEO Samir Menon’s Stanford thesis, described by Dexterity thusly, “Menon worked on a control theory framework to describe how the human brain controls and coordinates the body, which serves as a model to distill human skill into mathematical programs that control robots in a graceful human-like manner.”

Part of the company’s appeal appears to be the versatility of the robotics, which are designed to work alongside their human counterparts and operate collaboratively. Among the early adopters for the system are an unnamed “global food manufacturer,” “a worldwide package delivery provider” and Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

Dexterity says it’s also seen a boost from the push for essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic, like so many others in the robotics and automation fields, stating that its systems have been involved with the shipping of “half a million units of packaged food.”

Source: TechCrunch, Brian Heater, July 22, 2020

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.

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VC Deals Only: Fundbox Raises $20M in Extended Series C Funding R...

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Fundbox Raises $20M in Extended Series C Funding Round

Fundbox, a San Francisco, CA-based B2B payment and credit network, raised $20m in equity funding.

Backers in the round, which brings the total capital raised in their Series C round from September 2019 to almost $200m, included MUFG Innovation Partners, the corporate venture capital arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand its business reach. 

Led by CEO Eyal Shinar, Fundbox is a B2B payment and credit network which allows sellers of all sizes to increase average order volumes and improve close rates by offering more competitive net terms and payment plans to their SMB buyers. The company is located in San Francisco, CA, Dallas TX and Tel Aviv, Israel. 

Source. FinSMEs, May 28, 2020 

This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.

Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.

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VC Deals Only: LanzaTech Raises $50M, Launches New Sustainable Av...

VC Deals Only: LanzaTech Raises $50M, Launches New Sustainable Av...: LanzaTech , a renewable energy startup out of Skokie, announced Tuesday it will be launching a new spinout company called LanzaJet to produ...