Twitch has made another move into competitive esports, acquiring social media platform Bebo for up to $25 million, according to TechCrunch. Twitch outbid popular voice and text chat app Discord and social media giant Facebook, who reportedly offered $20 million.
Bebo was founded in 2005 and was once one of the most popular social media platforms in the U.K. The platform actually outperformed MySpace and Facebook in its early days and as a result, was bought out by AOL for $850 million in 2008.
Bebo wasn’t able to maintain that success and, in 2013, the original owners bought back the platform for $1 million. Over the past year, the company focused on game streaming software and esports events. In late 2018, Bebo shut down its streaming services in order to pivot towards the esports tournament side of its operations.
Bebo focuses on organizing and streaming esports tournaments, and this is what Twitch seems to be interested in. Twitch has been running its own esports operation with Twitch Rivals, which pits popular professional players and streamers against each other.
The company will reportedly help Twitch host its various tournaments and making sure that everything runs smoothly for both competitors and viewers alike.
Published: Jun 19, 2019 02:08 pm