A team of former Apple engineers and executives have launched Caffeine, the latest in the line of competition to Twitch.
The product is co-founded by former Product Design Lead for Apple TV Ben Keighran, as well as Sam Roberts, a Senior User Experience Designer at Apple. The TechCrunch report shares that the company has $46,000,000 backing from Andreessen Horrowitz and Greylock Partners.
Caffeine are marketing themselves as a significantly easier way to broadcast gameplay. Whereas to stream on Twitch, players often have to download software such as OBS, X-Split or something along those lines and the barrier can often deter people from beginning. Caffeine has launched with its own piece of software, where gamers can start streaming with a single click.
The software will also incorporate viewer comments and chat into the experience which thus means there’s no need for “elaborate multi-monitor setups”. In addition, the service promises zero delays and hopes to build a greater social element. Each streamer will be able to follow other streamers, and the social elements are amongst the top priority from the developers.
The TechCrunch report states that of the Caffeine team, staff hail from the likes of Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Oracle. Additionally, Anna Sweet heads up the business content and strategy efforts and Sweet was formerly of Valve and Oculus.
It’s clear at least for now that Caffeine is not going to immediately tackle the esports space. With Twitch rumouring to have paid about $90 million for the Overwatch League broadcast rights, a recent funding round of $46 million for Caffeine shows the disparity between the two. For now, Caffeine will target social streamers and take it from there.
Esports Insider says: It’s going to be a while until Caffeine grows to be on the level of the likes of Twitch – but we could potentially be seeing another competitor in what’s already a pretty busy space. Best of luck to the Caffeine team.
