Bessemer Venture Partners, Alsop Louie Partners and Draper Associates all invested in Twitch, according to an announcement Wednesday morning. Twitch says the funds will be used to expand the engineering team, which will take on tasks to grow the company.
Twitch has seen rapid growth since it launched in June 2011. Its streams now see 20 million unique visitors a month, and they have seen about a 13% monthly growth rate, says Vice President of Marketing Matthew DiPietro.
"We've become the default video platform for the gaming industry," DiPietro says. "We're seeing a switch from gaming as a solitary activitiy to becoming a real spectator event."
Gamers are spectating everything from eSports -- which are competitive gaming matches -- to content curated by game publishers, and individuals with high levels of skill playing for fun. Twitch has contracts with more than 2,000 partners, which are people or organizations that use them for a distribution platform.
"They are in a better position than anyone else to tap into the streaming trends," says Ethan Kurzweil, vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners. "When you see the kind of growth Twitch has had, you take notice."
DiPietro says Twitch's engineering department expansion will allow them to focus on two big projects. The first is assuring that their video network can withstand large amounts of traffic from all over the globe. The second will relate to allowing more people to stream their games online.
"It's amazing that we've had so much growth, because streaming your games is still a very difficult thing to do," DiPietro says. "We eventually want to build something that allows gamers to push one button and stream to Twitch."