Kamcord, the Y Combinator-backed startup with an SDK that lets developers offer gameplay recording functionality in mobile apps, today announced it has secured another big round of funding as the service hits some impressive milestones and launches a new community iOS app. Even before picking up a $7.1M Series A that it announced today, it’s quickly emerged as the top in-game recording platform and is starting to gain some serious traction with over 5 million videos shared and over 3 billion gameplay videos recorded. That’s compared to 2 million videos shared and 2 billion videos recorded back in February.
The new iOS app, available on the App Store now, will allow users to access the community of shared gameplay videos as well as user profiles, likes, and comments that it first launched as a web based feature on the desktop. The app will also let users search for games and Zitzmann noted, “the early stats for the app are compelling… 30% of users click to download a game every day.”
One top of the stats above, CEO Matt Zitzmann told me it also saw around 1 video shared every 2 seconds and 1 million videos shared last month alone. The service is growing every month, and a recent partnership to integrate Kamcord with the popular Unreal Engine from Epic Games has allowed many more devs building great games to easily take advantage of the Kamcord SDK. It’s now in 260 games and the company plans to use its new funding to help hire more individuals to reach out and work with the dev community.
Gameplay recording in mobile apps is still somewhat in its infancy among gamers on iOS and Android, but if the community of gamers sharing gameplay videos from the gaming consoles on YouTube and elsewhere is any indication, it could soon be big business on mobile too. On top of the latest consoles focusing heavily on in-game recording features—YouTube just added the ability to upload gameplay clips directly from Xbox One to the service— Disney just purchased a Maker Studios, one of the largest YouTube Networks that represents PewDiePie, a gaming channel that’s one of YouTube’s most subscribed creators.
One of the roughly 60 games it’s added to make a total of 260 in recent months is popular iPhone and iPad game Mini Carnival, which now offers the ability to record and share gameplay within the app using Kamcord.
The $7.1 million Series A that Kamcord announced today was led by Translink Capital with participation by DeNA, SV Angel, Innovation Works, KLab, M&Y Growth Partners, and XG Ventures. It’s not sharing any plans to monetize the service at this point, and it won’t be cluttering its in-app UI with ads, but the ability to drive app downloads through the Community app and shared videos on the web could definitely prove valuable if recording on gameplay on mobile continues to gain traction.
The Kamcord SDK is available free to developers for both iOS and Android through the company’s website.
