Caffeine.TV: The Twitch Competitor Backed By Drake | Forbes

Caffeine is a live-streaming service that allows anyone - entertainers, athletes, esports stars, amateurs - to broadcast to fans, who can chat with each other and the person they are watching. Launched to the public in November, the free service that Apptopia estimates has been downloaded 1.6 million times is going head-to-head with Amazon’s Twitch, which has 40.1 million downloads over the last year, thanks to popular gamers such as Turner ‘Tfue’ Tenney and Timothy ‘TimTheTatman’ Betar. But Twitch is largely associated with streaming video games. Caffeine wants to go well beyond that, offering live sports, concerts and, yes, rap battles.
Caffeine founder Ben Keighran says he received a surprise call from Horowitz, an early backer and board member, who connected him with Drake’s manager during last June’s NBA finals. The discussion culminated in a deal that will bring Drake exclusively to Caffeine to co-produce monthly battles of rap skills with the Ultimate Rap League, starting Feb. 29. “This is a name that everybody knows,” says Keighran. Drake means “live broadcasting in a way that hasn’t been shown at this level before.”
Keighran’s vision for the future of entertainment, which he calls “social broadcasting,” attracted $46 million in investment in January 2018 from Silicon Valley firms Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners and celebrity backers Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Durant. Fox Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch was similarly intrigued, and months later invested $100 million in Caffeine, at a valuation of $500 million, through his family’s media company, then known as 21st Century Fox. Together they set up a joint venture, Caffeine Studios, to produce esports, sports and live entertainment from the Fox studio lot in Los Angeles. “These big media companies are all hedging against the future,” says Doug Perlman, a sports media advisor.
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[@patw.6567]

Eversince i heard of all these collabs i was like yea caffeine’s social strategy is genius

[@TxnBBQ75]

What sucks is if you are a streamer to Twitch, YT, or FB you can not use your current OBS Studio to stream on Caffeine because they have their own version of OBS. You are forced to ONLY use their OBS (COBS) to stream. You might be able to use StreamLabs for Twitch, FB and YT but being limited to that and being forced to choose sucks!

[@Je.rone_]

I literally didn't know TVs still were still in existence

[@patw.6567]

Black Vito - Moneyology haha

[@sergiohoy602]

It's great! A social network for artists !!! An instant connection between the art of a Singer or an actor with their fans where the purpose is to entertain and give content to their fans.

[@prodbydramatic]

Very interesting. Drake is one hell of a business man. I do believe Augmented Reality is the future like bigger than ever. I look forward to it and Shout out Ovo for keeping the flight in light

[@themeyer2010]

Bay Areas how long until you think that will be mainstream?

[@ericchacone3876]

Caffeine tv shutdown (bankruptcy) July 2024

[@Yeoal]

The future!!!!!!!!

[@earliedennis178]

Pitiful. Just trying to exploit black content creators like Tik Tok. Drake like every other black celeb

[@lesmup548]

First Comment!

[@patw.6567]

Les Mup third