US mobile gameplay recording and sharing outfit Kamcord has announced a $7.1 million Series A funding round.
It was led by TransLink Capital, and supported by SV Angel, DeNA, KLab and M&Y Growth Partners.
Existing investors Innovation Works, XG Ventures and Mark Williamson also participated.
The world's a stage
Kamcord CEO Matt Zitzmann says he's pleased with the mix of companies, which includes content creators such as Japanese companies DeNA and KLabs, as well as traditional Asian investors.
"They understand mobile gaming and SDKs," he explains.
"We also want to be well positioned for Asia and we now have investors from China, Korea and Japan."
In terms of what the funding will be used for, Zitzmann says it will enable the Kamcord to further drive the adoption of its SDK, while allowing it to increase marketing for its consumer-facing mobile app, which was released on iOS in April [iTunes link].
"It's important to have a destination for players. Discovery is a big part of our app," he adds, claiming 30 percent of users are downloading a game through the app every day.
Building the consumer proposition
Indeed, pushing forward in terms of developer and consumer adoption is the plan for 2014.
Discovery is a big part of our app.Matt Zitzmann
"It's hard to manage developer relations and consumer growth but you need both. That's one of the reasons we raised the investment," Zitzmann explains.
"We've built a great foundation with the developers and now it's time to find the players who are creating video content and make the best of them into stars."
Overall, Kamcord is generating 1 video shared every two seconds, and had one million shared videos in March.
One example of this is the interaction generated by Minecraft-style game Mini Carnival, which since integrating Kamcord has seen 11 percent of its video views generating a 'like' and 3.5 percent a comment.
The double-hand approach is what Zitzmann hopes will also protect Kamcord - which is still a relatively small company - from competitors such as Twitch, which while being more focused on console games, are moving into mobile.
"Twitch has a good audience on PC, but it has hurdles to overcome too," he notes.
"You need consumers and business relationships with developers. We started with developers. That's been our experience. Twitch can't just flip a switch and build that overnight."
