TwitchTV gets $15M investment

Expansion needs investment. TwitchTV is receiving an investment of $15 million Dollar for further growth from Bessemer Venture Partners and co-investors.

For TwitchTV, it's the third round of investments into the company after 2005 and 2007. Back in 2007, investors gave $7,000,000, the company which was back then still only JustinTV. Now with the next round it's even more: $15 million Dollar are invested by Bessemer Venture Partners.

TwitchTV wants to continue growth with the money. In 2012 along the streaming service has gone from 12 million unique viewers to over 20 million, according to GamesBeat. Alongside Bessemer, Alsop Louie Partners and Draper Associates are also investing into the San Francisco company Justin.TV, which still runs TwitchTV the gaming brand.

Next big step for the company will be to allow gamers to stream from within games, avoiding 3rd-party programs and annoying setup times. They already did this for the game Showdown Effect. Twitch’s Matthew DiPietro says about this new feature: "We are removing those barriers. It’s a one-click process to broadcast your match."

Bessemer Venture Partners has invested in multiple companies with online affinity: LinkedIn, Skype, box and Pinterest are on their portfolio list. "Twitch is exactly the kind of company that we seek for investment," says Ethan Kurzweil, vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners. [...] They created this market. They created a whole phenomenon."

Source: GamesBeat