Video game livestreaming platform Hitbox has managed to raise $4 million in funding from a group of investors that includes venture capital firm SpeedInvest, North Base Media…and World of Tanks developer Wargaming.
While Wargaming was not the lead investor (company representatives declined to disclose to Gamasutra how much of the $4M it contributed) the company will acquire a seat on the Hitbox board as part of this deal.
“Supporting live streaming for our games and fans has always been a key pillar in our strategy for growing our online presence,” stated Wargaming exec Sean Lee (who will be occupying that Hitbox board seat) in a Hitbox blog post celebrating the investment. “Hitbox allows us to truly make live streaming an extension of Wargaming and our titles through the ability to integrate game data into the broadcast.”
The post goes on to note that this represents a deeper partnership between Hitbox and Wargaming, but does not explain what that might mean for Wargaming devs or Hitbox broadcasters.
Wargaming recently struck an official partnership deal with Raptr’s Plays.tv video clip sharing service, but it’s not inconceivable for that platform to coexist peacefully with Hitbox, which is designed to let broadcasters stream their gameplay a la Twitch rather than record and share specific clips.