Company raises $1.58M; seeks to transform in-person, online and hybrid sessions and boost active participation by gamifying traditional presentation platform features
NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- StreamAlive, the leading audience engagement platform for live sessions, today announced a $1.58M pre-seed investment from Speciale Invest, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on deep tech. Venkat Viswanathan, founder and Chairman of LatentView Analytics, Shar Dubey, former CEO of Match Group, Foster Ventures, and other seasoned executives also participated in the round. Existing investors include three professors from MIT's computer science department, the Neon fund, and accomplished executives and unicorn founders.
The shift from fully in-person to hybrid and remote work, as well as the continued rise of the creator economy have spurred an increase in digital content consumption. As presenters and creators look to lead, inspire and grow their audiences, it's important to move people from passive observers to active participants. However, traditional streaming and video conferencing platforms were not designed with engagement in mind—leaving audiences disconnected and dispassionate.
"Acknowledging and recognizing people is one of the most powerful and effective ways to keep them happy and engaged. This is easy for small groups, but for presenters with large audiences that are in-person, online or a mix, the ability to interact with every individual is hampered by time and technology," said CEO Lux Narayan. We created StreamAlive to overcome this obstacle and empower presenters and creators to ensure every participant—no matter where they are—has a voice that is heard and seen. Plus, it struck us that presentation tech has seen no real innovation since the mid-80s when PowerPoint was invented."
To support the rise in participatory culture and community-driven commerce, StreamAlive connects audiences and presenters through live, visual interactions. Using the native chat function of any live stream or video conferencing platform, the audience powers these interactions including AI-powered Q&As, polls, short-answer questions, giveaways and more. The platform displays the results in real time—elevating the experience for everyone without having to navigate away from the live session.
StreamAlive operates in the background and seamlessly integrates into many popular live streaming and presentation platforms, including Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, YouTube Live, and Twitch. The platform also connects offline and hybrid audiences via browser-based chat so that everyone can be included no matter where they are or how they are experiencing the live session. This enables presenters to meet audiences where they are and eliminates the need to download or register for any new software. Presenters can activate StreamAlive simply by dropping a meeting link into the platform chat or by downloading it from the platform's app marketplace.
StreamAlive's use cases are versatile and plentiful—from webinars to company all-hands and town halls, to teaching and training, to live-streamed gaming and entertainment, and offline conferences and hybrid events. The platform has been adopted by teams at Nike, Persistent Systems and Symphony AI for hybrid sessions, by organizations like the National Health Services for training medical staff and by creators including viral YouTuber Airrack. All have found success energizing their audiences with StreamAlive.
"StreamAlive has been a game-changer in my approach to fostering inclusive participation," said Manish Agarwal, infrastructure expert and former partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. "By leveraging the chat, StreamAlive effectively bridges the engagement gap between introverted and extroverted individuals. I have harnessed its capabilities to enhance our lecture interactions, ensuring that every participant feels integrated and valued. In the context of a classroom, this includes those who are too shy to speak up and those who are too cool to speak up. It also enables me to run through the cumulated questions at the end of the session, to ensure no query has been ignored. Since I don't discourage smart-aleck comments, StreamAlive provides a channel to creativity of the disruptive types, without disrupting the class, and gives me a real-time feel of the mood in the class."
The StreamAlive team has its eyes set on growth with ambitions to rapidly expand in 2024. The company plans to deploy the capital to grow the sales and development teams, refine the user experience for early adopters, and broaden its usability to include more platforms and use cases.
"The StreamAlive team has identified a space that is ripe for innovation," said Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner at Speciale. "Audience engagement is becoming a priority for creators eager to maximize the buying power of connected communities and for organizations embracing hybrid work for the long term. StreamAlive has built a solution that drives audience interaction naturally and frictionlessly—it is incredibly sticky."
StreamAlive has already received accolades for its success in the live presentation space and has been recognized as a Top Product by Product Hunt. To learn more and try an interactive demo, visit: http://www.streamalive.com
About StreamAlive
StreamAlive empowers companies, creators, and class presenters to get the best out of their technology and audiences with an AI-based audience engagement platform. The company's solution reverses the status quo of "ignoring audiences" and boosts active participation at scale for online, in-person, and hybrid sessions from webinars and town-hall meetings to training and gaming. StreamAlive works seamlessly with popular presentation and streaming platforms including YouTube Live, Twitch, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Founded in 2022, StreamAlive is backed by private angel investors and has offices in New York, India, and London. For more information, visit https://www.streamalive.com/.
Media Contact
Peter Moran, Indicate Media, (347) 880-2895, [email protected], indicatemedia.com
SOURCE StreamAlive
Share this article