Lightstream Raises $8M Series A Round to Enhance its Unique Live Streaming Creative Suite and Technologies

CHICAGO, Feb. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Lightstream, an innovator in live streaming technology, today announced that it has raised $8M in Series A funding led by Drive Capital. The Series A includes $6M invested from Drive Capital, MK Capital and Pritzker Group, and an additional $2M from Silicon Valley Bank. Since the company was founded in 2014, Lightstream has raised a total of $9.8M.

Lightstream delivers innovative, creative broadcasting products and technology that empower storytellers and address the biggest challenges creators face. With the growth of its business and the support of this funding, Lightstream will focus on scaling its highly technical team, powerful new capabilities for its creators, impactful partnerships, and global expansion. Lightstream's mission is to support creators along their entire journey. This year, Lightstream will provide its creator community with ways to help grow their audiences, and with that growth, turn their passion into a career.

In April 2018, Lightstream entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft's streaming platform, Mixer. This exclusive partnership has integrated Lightstream's live streaming Studio into the native broadcasting experience for Xbox and Windows users. Since that integration, and along with the explosive growth of the live streaming industry, Lightstream's content creators nearly quadrupled this past year and streamed 8.5x more hours in just one month of 2018 than in the entirety of 2017.

"2018 was an incredible year for us. Our creative tools are used by thousands of creators every day and our team is more excited and inspired than ever. The growth has provided loads of data and really stress tested of our technology allowing us to make rapid improvements to the quality and consistency of the experience for every streamer," said Stu Grubbs, Lightstream Co-founder, and CEO. "We started our company to simplify that first step in the creative journey and make streaming easier. With this funding, we will continue to support creators on the rest of their journey with growth and monetization."

Since the launch of the Microsoft partnership, Lightstream doubled the size of its team with world-class talent to serve their rapidly growing community. Lightstream has also hired for two key leadership roles: Chief Technology Officer, Jenny Farver, who leads the engineering team, as well as a Director of Streamer Success, Drew Pierce, who provides content creators with the highest levels of support. Lightstream also worked to globally expand its footprint across North America and Europe in 2018 and will further expand into Asia and South America in 2019.

Drive Capital General Partner, Andy Jenks, has also joined Lightstream's Board of Directors. "Lightstream is an incredible company that has seen tremendous growth because of smart and efficient practices. Stu and his team stand at the convergence of multiple massive and rapidly growing industries," said Jenks. "Stu has immense passion and a keen vision for what they can do for creators and the impact Lightstream can have in live streaming, gaming, and beyond. They have assembled an incredible team, made smart strategic moves, created massive partnerships and are building towards something so big that we had to be a part of it."

With more information and exciting news to come in 2019, be sure to follow Lightstream on Twitter and at https://www.golightstream.com.

About Lightstream
Lightstream is a Chicago-based startup built with a true passion for live video production, gaming and supporting the explosive growth of creators and their communities. Its cloud-based technology and products transform difficult technical hurdles into streamlined workflows. Lightstream empowers creators to effortlessly share their passion, talent, and creativity on live streaming platforms like Mixer, Twitch, Facebook, YouTube and more.

SOURCE Lightstream