Led · Series D · Jul 2020

Caffeine is a Redwood City, Calif.-based live broadcasting platform that creates and distributes live, interactive entertainment. Led by founder and CEO Ben Keighran, the company launched out of beta last November and added two million new registered users over the last year. Streams on the platform typically run sub-190 milliseconds and are often 15 seconds to a full minute faster than other streaming platforms. Caffeine enforces a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, hate speech and racism using automated filtering, human moderators and community self-regulation. The company has secured exclusive and branded partnerships, including an exclusive collaboration with Drake that brought Ultimate Rap League to the platform and streams of Fox Sports content. It intends to use new funding to accelerate growth and the onboarding of entertainers. Caffeine is a social livestreaming platform founded in San Francisco in 2016 that enables users to broadcast esports, video gaming, entertainment and other creative live content. The platform supports social features such as watching movies and TV virtually with friends and allows broadcasters to stream varied content, from games to live music or personal performances. Caffeine remains in pre-release beta with no official launch date provided. Prior investors Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners previously invested $46 million across two rounds. Most recently the company raised more than $100 million in a round led by 21st Century Fox, with Fox itself investing $100 million. The cash will fund Caffeine Studios, a joint venture with Fox Sports to produce exclusive live entertainment including esports, gaming and sports, and Caffeine has also signed a content deal with Live Nation to bring concerts to the platform. Caffeine offers a suite of streaming products including a free 10 MB Windows app that enables one-click game streaming, web-browser streaming, and iPhone streaming. The company built its own real-time distribution video network leveraging WebRTC to deliver zero-delay streams and custom technology that detects game launches and injects viewer comments as an overlay. Its UX emphasizes people-centric social features—followed streams, friend-prioritized comments, community-endorsed comments, and customizable comment bubbles—aimed at casual streamers rather than top competitive broadcasters. Caffeine intends to add monetization tools and the option to delay streams later in the year to attract more serious creators. The team includes ex-Apple engineers and designers and other hires from Valve, Oculus, Netflix, Amazon, and Oracle, and the company says its headcount is over 20 (under 50). Caffeine positions itself against Twitch and YouTube Gaming by focusing on simplicity, friendliness, and a moderated community experience.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2017

Share Rocket provides broadcasters and digital publishers with benchmarking, market intelligence, and actionable insights to quantify social media equity. Its core product delivers proprietary ratings metrics and performance scores, real-time insights, and daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly scorecards benchmarked against peers. The platform is used by newsrooms and management to measure reach and influence and has been validated by large local broadcasters. Share Rocket is described in the article as becoming the standard rating system for comparative social influence. CEO Chris Kraft said the company is focused on growth and committed to working alongside clients to enhance its real-time solution and drive improved performance and social ROI. The company announced a $5 million Series A financing led by Tribune Media, with Fox Television Stations and Capitol Broadcasting also investing.