YouTube is reportedly acquiring San Francisco-based Twitch for a whopping $1 billion
Reportedly, YouTube has reached a deal to buy the San Francisco based videogame streaming service Twitch, for more than $1 billion, as mentioned to Variety by sources familiar with the pact. If all goes well, then this would be the biggest news from YouTube since Susan Wojcicki was named CEO of the company earlier this year.
Both YouTube and Twitch's representatives have declined to comment on this.
Variety has mentioned that the all-cash offer deal might be be announced imminently.
San Francisco-based Twitch lets users upload and watch free, live game-play videos that can be streamed from Microsoft Xbox and PlayStation 4 consoles. The company has over 45 million monthly users and more than 1 million members upload videos each month. India ranks second globally in terms of YouTube video uploads.
According to Variety report, YouTube is preparing for U.S. regulators to challenge the Twitch deal. YouTube expects the Justice Department to take a hard look at whether buying Twitch raises anti-competitive issues in the online-video market.
Twitch was started by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear in June 2011 and has raised about $35 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and others.
Earlier this year, Mobile video network Vuclip announced $10 million in annual revenues which testifies the increasing consumption of videos online.
Watch this space for further updates.
