21.05.2021 | 8 min read |

by Andrea Rácz

StreamBee, a startup from Prague’s HubHub, has raised investment to help streamers thrive with the help of data.

In 2020, Czech startup StreamBee became the finalists of the FTRNW startup competition. The main prize for the winners was a full membership in one of the most innovative coworking spaces in Prague – HubHub. The first big successes did not have to be awaited for long. StreamBee has just raised their first investment round for further development.

Just a few years ago, streaming was considered an entertainment for hardcore gamers. A lot has changed since then, the industry has evolved significantly, and so have the earnings of the top streamers who can earn up to $500,000 a month on the Twitch platform.

As of 2019, the number of active streamers on the Twitch platform has grown from 4.5 million to more than 9 million per month. The number of viewers is also growing proportionally. More than 30 million people watch Twitch daily. Top streamers are becoming more and more recognizable as their earnings reach six-figure sums. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to succeed in such a highly competitive market. That’s where a Czech startup – StreamBee – wants to help.

Martin Blokša, CEO of StreamBee with over six years of experience as a product manager at companies such as IBM, Mall Groupe, SAP and Economia, was one of the Twitch streamers as well. That’s how he came up with the idea for StreamBee. To delve deeper into gamers’ problems and validate his startup concept, he attended the largest streamers’ conference in Europe – TwitchCon. The positive response he received from fellow streamers strengthened him in his idea that led to founding StreamBee!

Then, everything went very quickly. Matej Kukucka, who helped double sales of LiveAgent (multichannel help desk), joined the StreamBee team as CMO and Jakub Blokša,  a full-stack developer who honed his experience at AISoft, Q2 Interactive and CertiCo, became startup’s CTO.

Czech gaming startup scene with global ambitions

StreamBee is a tech startup that focuses on data analytics for streamers. It was built on .Net Core and React technologies and it’s much more than just a Twitch platform data analysing tool. It’s often referred to as “Google Analytics for streamers” as it also gathers data from YouTube, Facebook Gaming, social networks and their own sources giving games the holistic overview of the gaming scene.

The StreamBee team has already managed to achieve several significant successes on the local and European startup scene. In 2020, they became the most popular esports startup in the WeWork Labs EU Startup Showcase, they won the Czech Pitch Night and became a member of Ment2Grow. On top of that they were also shortlisted in the TOP 9 CEE early-stage startups ranking by FTRNW 2020.

The potential of this sector has been reflected in the interest of investors. StreamBee has been recently backed by the Czech fund Lighthouse Ventures with their first round of funding in an effort to become the streaming creators’ guide to all platforms, from the first viewers to the first millions earned. They offer their product to streamers for free, with their business model based on monetizing influencer marketing. They plan to launch their main product – data analytics tool – at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The StreamBee Discord community, which currently has more than 1,500 streamers and is growing steadily by more than 10 percent every month, is the best validation of their products by streamers.

The first product launched by the startup is called Buzz. Audiences love their streamers, but streamers often don’t know their own viewers. Buzz will incentivize the streamers to engage in full conversations with their observers through private messaging. Monetizing this service will help filter out the viewers who want to make real connections. The first streamers will be able to try Buzz in just a few weeks.

The StreamBee team consists of 11 people from all around the world. They have offices in the modern coworking spaces HubHub in the center of Prague. They are currently in the pre-launch stage. StreamBee is growing at the speed of light and is therefore looking for reinforcements to their development and graphics team. Do you want to be part of building a runway for the growth of streamers? Visit streambee.io for more information.