Have you ever thought about live streaming yourself while tweeting? Twitter hasn’t looked into such features yet, but Japan’s TwitCasting, created by Moi Corporation, offers a service that allows you to stream live video for free from your iPhone or Android. This service, which is quite popular in Japan, has announced it raised $0.64M from East Ventures and angel investors (News source: e27).
TwitCasting, in addition to being available on mobile devices, also has a web app and is offered in both English and Japanese. The app allows users to log in with either Twitter or Facebook and suggests various types of live chats to follow, such as Movies Only, Music Only, and Radio Only. Users can join these live streams or click the Broadcast button to start their own chat. The app is well integrated with Twitter and features options like saving videos, subscribing, and live tags. However, the web app, which functions more like a group video chat and could be handy for events, has a somewhat cluttered interface with a lot of ads on the site.
The service which has more than 2.4 million users – 80% from Japan, 10% from Brazil and 10% from other countries plans to invest the money in developing the platform and acquiring core team members. Speaking on the occasion, Yosuke Akamatsu, CEO of Moi Corporation stated that the funds will fuel the app’s growth which is witnessing ‘hockey stick’ growth from last summer.
Along with the funding, the company has also announced that Taiga Matsuyama, a partner at East Ventures, will take a seat at MOI’s board of directors. Exciting times ahead for TwitCasting that has managed to scale in the recent times due to the youth possibly joining the platform to make new friends online.
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