Social VR sports viewing startup livelike has announced a Series B investment of $9.6 million.
Livelike is building a social sports viewing platform for VR and AR devices. The company’s product focuses on connecting remote users into ‘virtual suite’ where they can watch a live sports game projected outside the window (as if watching it from a stadium skybox), along with virtual screens showing stats, different angles, replays, and more. The company hopes to create a “new, interactive, communal way of watching live sports”
I was impressed when I got a chance to see an early version of their tech back in 2015. The company went on to raise a $5 million Series A round in 2016, and this week announced a $9.6 million Series B investment, bringing in investors Greycroft Partners and Lepe Partners, among others.
“LiveLike will utilize its new investment to expands its partnerships, and further build out its product and platform to make it even simpler and frictionless for users,” the company explained in its investment announcement. “This will include creating increased cross-platform compatibility, an evolved user interface to make content discovery even more intuitive, and new in-product experiences—such as fantasy sports integrations—designed to spark additional social interactions. Moreover, it will look to build new compelling advertising opportunities that enable marketers to connect with sports fans in groundbreaking ways.”
Livelike is developing its offering as a white label platform, allowing various sports and event producers to link their broadcasts into the virtual suite, and provide unique branding to fit the broadcaster, sport, and teams on the field. The company says that both FOX Sports and the French Tennis Federation are among the companies they’ve worked with thus far, and have created VR experiences using their tech for Super Bowl LI, UEFA Champions League Final, NCAA Basketball Big East Tournament, and the French Open.