Hitbox challenges Amazon’s Twitch and Google’s YouTube in game livestreaming

GamesBeat: Where are you as far as numbers of users?

Klimscha: We started a year and a half ago. We wanted to create the product first before we talked to the media and brought people on to the platform. Without any marketing investment, we grew from zero to six million monthly active users.

GamesBeat: Do you notice whether you’re getting people directly from Twitch, or brand new users? Is Europe the center of your user base?

Klimscha: The good thing is, there are always new games. Young people are finding out that playing games is fun and finding out that they have the option to stream. The streaming market is growing incredibly. Gaming is growing, but live streaming of gaming is growing many times faster. Every week, every month, new users start to stream.

We’re working together with huge tournament organizers like DreamHack. We were the exclusive partner of the company hosting the Counter-Strike world championship. But we also have a lot of casual streamers. They were using other platforms before they found us, but they’ve tried the service, they saw the difference, and they stick with us. We didn’t have to convince them. The product convinced them.

GamesBeat: It’ll be interesting to see how much of the gap you can close, how fast you can catch up to Twitch.

Klimscha: We’re trying to move as fast as possible on a technology basis. This is what our core audience, our community we’ve built up, really appreciates. There’s not a week when they don’t find something new in our platform. Other platforms have started to copy us. A couple of things we released half a year ago, we’re starting to see them elsewhere. It’s a good sign. We’re doing something right, it seems like.

Above: Hitbox on 4K TV

Image Credit: Hitbox

GamesBeat: What’s the show been like for you, talking to people about Hitbox?

Klimscha: We want people to know about us now. We were flying a little bit under the radar, staying focused on building the product. Now is the right time to show the world what we have. We’re at a level where we’re number two in the market now. A lot of people are using us. We want to close to the gap. For that we need to people to know we’re out there.

GamesBeat: Are you planning to raise funds for marketing?

Klimscha: We closed a seed round last year. It wasn’t disclosed. We’re also close to finishing a growth round right now. We’re going for strong numbers this year.

GamesBeat: A lot of gamers are becoming celebrities out here. Twitch has all their big stars here.

Klimscha: We flew into L.A. on Sunday from Germany. There were 30 streamers from Hitbox on the plane. I liked that. A lot of YouTubers, a lot of personalities. Most of them are Hitbox users too. It was a good flight. The United States is actually our largest market, though. Most of our viewers come from the U.S.

We had a strong regional focus when we opened the platform at the very beginning, but we have a global infrastructure. We’re focusing on local markets like France, Poland, and Germany. When we opened the platform in October, the funny thing is, Brazil was the largest market. When we asked streamers, “Why are you on Hitbox?” they said, “Finally we have a system that works for us.” That made us really happy.

Above: Hitbox CEO Martin Klimscha

Image Credit: HItbox