AAA Lyft records Kamcord acqu-ihire deal

Lyft records Kamcord acqu-ihire deal

Kamcord, a US-based livestreaming app developer backed by corporates including media group Time Warner and internet company Tencent, will close, with most of its team joining ride hailing platform Lyft.

Lyft has not acquired Kamcord outright or any of its technology, but will take on 12 members of its 15-person team including co-founders Aditya Rathnam and Kevin Wang, according to VentureBeat.

Founded in 2012, Kamcord began life as a social media platform for users to record and share mobile gameplay, but pivoted in 2015 to focus on livestreaming mobile apps and games but struggled to increase its market size past 2 million monthly active users.

Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed but Rathnam told the site Kamcord’s products will all be sunsetted. He will be working on Lyft’s apps for drivers, while Wang will become an engineering manager on the passenger side.

Kamcord had raised approximately $35m in venture funding, most recently securing $10m in an April 2016 round that valued the company at $100m.

Participants in the 2016 round included Time Warner’s corporate venturing arm, Time Warner Investments, as well as Tencent, game developer Wargaming, TransLink Capital, XG Ventures and Plug & Play Ventures.

Kamcord raised $2.5m in seed capital across rounds in 2012 and 2013, raising funds from Tencent and Innovation Works as well as internet company Digital Garage, Google Ventures, the corporate venturing unit now known as GV, and Netprice, the e-commerce company now known as Beenos.

TransLink Capital led Kamcord’s $7.1m series A round in May 2014, investing together with internet company DeNA, Innovation Works, XG Ventures, SV Angel, M&Y Growth Partners, KLab and angel investor Mark Willamson.

The company closed a $15m series B round in December the same year that included game developer GungHo Online Entertainment, Tencent and Wargaming.

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