Medal.tv offers a service in short-form video clipping and is also a social network for gamers. It has now planned for entering the live streaming market after its recent acquisition of Rawa.tv, a Twitch rival based in Dubai. It has raised about $1 million to date. The deal will facilitate Rawa’s founders Raya Dadah and Phil Jammal to join Medal. There will be further integrations between the two platforms soon.
Medal.tv CEO Pim de Witte explained that the Middle East and North African region (MENA) is a growing market in gaming but most companies fail to focus on these markets. He said, “Most companies that target that market don’t really understand the nuances and try to replicate existing Western or Far-Eastern models that are doomed to fail.” He added that a local player will increase his companies chances of getting hold of those markets. Medal.tv was looking for live streaming options for a long time and Witte noted that “People increasingly connect around live and real-time experiences, and this is something our platform has lacked to date.”
Rawa has its live streaming platform dedicated to Arab gaming and has built its own live and network streaming technology which is now used in all of its products. This technology is what Medal.tv was looking for and becomes the reason for the acquisition.
Rawa users were able to upload their gaming clips in Medal.tv earlier too. Even though acquired and controlled by Medal.tv, Rawa.tv will continue its operations as a separate platform. At present Rawa has over 100,000 active uses on its platform. Medal.tv has explained their future plans with Rawa on their site. The company also clarified that it won’t venture into non-gaming content and will remain focused on the gaming community.
Medal.tv was able to raise $9 million in its Series A financing round led by Horizons Ventures in 2019. The company boasts of over 200,000 people creating content every day on its platform with 3 million users actively viewing it every month.
