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Kickstarter Acquires Vancouver-based Start-up Company Huzza, Opens First International Office
Friday, February 3, 2017
Vancouver, BC, February 3, 2017--(T-Net)--Kickstarter announced today that they have acquired Vancouver-based Huzza, which offers interactive live-streaming for creators and professionals.
Kickstarter also announced that they have opened their first international office, also based in Vancouver, Canada.
Huzza was founded in 2015 by two Vancouver entrepreneurs — Justin Womersley and Nick Smit — who set out to bring musicians and their fans closer together through live video.
"When we first experienced the product they built, it immediately struck a chord. It was intimate, it inspired personal connection, and it was clear how it would strengthen the best parts of Kickstarter while bringing our community to life in new ways.", stated Kickstarter in a blog announcement regarding the acquisition.
"So last year we teamed up to bring that experience directly into Kickstarter, and together we launched Kickstarter Live. In the few months since introducing it, hundreds of creators have invited tens of thousands of new fans to tune in to live broadcasts — from intimate musical performances, and live product demos, to instructional gameplay tutorials, and private dance rehearsals. Check out the upcoming streams here."
"These behind-the-scenes invitations into the creative process have brought artists and audiences closer together, and helped creators generate greater support for their ideas at the earliest stages of development. The average viewer spends more than 16 minutes per stream engaged with creators. And those creators have have enjoyed a 74% success rate — more than twice the site-wide average. It's still new, but we're excited where it's trending."
Justin Womersley and Nick Smit will now join Kickstarter full-time to develop Kickstarter Live further. They've opened a new office in Vancouver's historic Gastown neighborhood where they're building a team of engineers and designers to help them lead that work, according to the company.
"Choosing to shutdown Huzza was an incredibly difficult decision for us, especially as Kickstarter gave us the opportunity to keep the platform going. Our mission with Huzza has always been to help creators connect and more deeply engage with their communities, and we felt that we can have a bigger impact on creators by focusing our efforts on Kickstarter." stated Huzza in a blog announcement regarding the acquisition.
Huzza reported that they are working on a data export tool that will allow users to export all of their recordings, chat messages, Q&As, selfies, and subscriber details (and will be available by next week).
The company will also be refunding all subscriptions for the month of February, and cancelling all subscriptions thereafter.
Full Huzza functionality will be available until the 1st March 2017. After that date, user data will no longer be available via Huzza (this includes embeds).
About Huzza
Huzza offers interactive live-streaming for creators and professionals. Reward your followers with fun, engaging & interactive live-video
About Kickstarter
Kickstarter is the world's largest funding platform for creative projects. A home for film, music, art, theater, games, comics, design, photography, and more. https://www.kickstarter.com