Live-streaming app Meerkat has raised US$14m in funding from some of Silicon Valley’s top investors. The news comes as Twitter went live with its rival live-streaming app, Periscope.
Meerkat raised the funding from Greylock, Comcast Ventures and private investors that include Ashton Kutcher.
The company was established only a year ago by Ben Rubin and quickly became popular on Twitter. It was pretty much the star of the show at SXSW recently.
It is ironic the app found its footing on Twitter considering Twitter itself has gone live with its own live-streaming effort Periscope. A month ago it emerged that Twitter acquired Periscope for around US$100m.
“Now that Meerkat has lit the world on fire over the past couple of weeks, it’s becoming the foundation of what I hope will become a powerful new network,” said Greylock Ventures partner Josh Elman in a post on Medium.
“A way for people to instantaneously broadcast moments in their lives to anyone, or to schedule and plan ahead for interesting content they want to broadcast live. For viewers, we think this is going to provide an amazing alternative to other kinds of engagement and entertainment.
“Instead of reading asynchronous messages, you can jump in live, with friends, to view the world through someone else’s eyes and talk and express yourself together. For artists and creators, we think this will inspire a new way of engaging with their fans and enable them to create and earn significant new value for their content along the way too.”
