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Former Apple, Oculus, and Valve Execs Unveil New Caffeine Social Streaming Platform

Caffeine aims to be a simpler, safer, and completely reimagined live broadcasting platform that puts people first.

Asif Khan

January 31, 2018 8:30 AM

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Today, Caffeine has announced the unveiling of its new social broadcasting platform and tools for games, entertainment, and other artistic content. The company claims to have completely reimagined the broadcasting platform. Caffeine is social, real-time, more personal while requiring no third-party software or plug-ins. The company aims to make it simpler, safer, and the best experience for live broadcasting. The Caffeine broadcasting platform and tools are currently in “pre-release” and are available at caffeine.tv on the web and via the Caffeine.tv iOS app.

Backed by a total of $46 million raised in two funding rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners, Caffeine was co-founded by two former Apple executives, Ben Keighran (Product Design Lead for Apple TV) and Sam Roberts (Senior User Experience Designer). Keighran is a successful internet entrepreneur and the former co-founder of Chomp, a search startup that was acquired by Apple in 2012. Keighran and Roberts brought on former Valve and Oculus executive, Anna Sweet, to head up Caffeine’s business, content and strategy efforts. Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz and John Lilly from Greylock Partners are on the board of directors.

“We’re incredibly excited to be sharing more details on the pre-release version of Caffeine,” said Ben Keighran, CEO of Caffeine. “I left Apple to create a company that would fundamentally change the way we create, consume, share, and monetize live content. Our goal was to re-imagine every aspect of live broadcasting -- ignoring the good things we could do and focusing on the really great things instead. We are committed to building the best experience for creators, giving them everything they need, from the broadcasting software all the way through to how the audience discovers and enjoys their content. We have put together a world-class engineering and content team that will transform the way the world thinks about live broadcasting.”

"Caffeine is masterfully designed to enable creators in all fields to connect with their audiences in the best way possible," said Ben Horowitz, co-founder and general partner, Andreessen Horowitz. "I am extremely excited to be working on this new future with Ben and team."

“Caffeine has built a beautifully designed experience for publishers, streamers and viewers alike, with an architecture that supports more natural social interactions within groups. Ben and Sam are exactly the kind of founders I love to back; they are entrepreneurial, seasoned, and design driven. I am thrilled to be in a part of their team,” said John Lilly, partner at Greylock Partners and Board member at Caffeine.           

Check out some interesting bullet points from the press release:

A Safe and Friendly Community

Caffeine is a social broadcasting platform, meaning that people, not content, are at the center of the experience. Users find content because of the people they follow in their social circles, and come together to experience that content. That means, there are no endless feeds of meaningless comments -- personal conversations with friends and creators are given preference, enabling more meaningful social engagements while disposing of toxic chatter. And because the proprietary infrastructure delivers content and conversations with virtually no latency, the interactions happen in real time.

Better for Creators

With Caffeine, creators can build more personal, meaningful relationships with their followers. Stronger relationships mean deeper engagement with their content, and ultimately, better ways to monetize that content. A re-imagined, easy to use monetization system will be coming to the platform in early 2018.

“While Caffeine launched its pre-release with gaming at its core, we are already seeing other forms of entertainment on the platform, such as live podcasts and talk shows” added Keighran. “Our pre-release build is just the beginning. We look forward to officially launching Caffeine in the first half of 2018, and rolling out new features, including a whole new monetization system that makes it easier than ever for creators to make money. Caffeine is creating the future of broadcasting,” said Keighran.

There will be three ways to broadcast: PC game broadcast software, webcam from a Mac or PC browser, and an iOS app. There is also no need to configure bitrates, stream keys, IP addresses, or other time-consuming details. One more thing that is super interesting is Caffeine's claims that there is zero delay. You talk and receive messages in real time, no crazy delay. 

This all sounds great, and we will be keeping Shackers posted about this new social broadcasting platform by Caffeine.

For more information or to start broadcasting your content, visit www.caffeine.tv.

Asif Khan

CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.