In India there were 10 million active Internet-enabled smart phones in 2014 and the figure is expected to reach 264 million users in 2016. Live streaming industry has seen a recent boost due to advent of live streaming mobile applications. In 2014, global mobile video traffic amounted to 1,377,497 terabytes per month and is expected to project to 4,104,719 TB (that’s more than double) per month in 2016. There is a huge market in India for synchronous many to one mobile transmission because we have so many reasons to celebrate on a daily basis; couple that with the factor that we like sharing our happiness with the people we care for and you can see how important an app like InstaLively can be.
InstaLively is an end user product essentially, a utility based application. It is an application that lets you live stream your moments to the world in the form of a video. Instalively is the first android application capable of broadcasting Live High Definition stream on Youtube using the in-built camera on your phone. The application is designed to work well over both 2G and 3G networks all over India. InstaLively is the first end-to-end Live Streaming solution, available both on Mobile and the Desktop. There are new innovations on a day to day basis in the field now, and they have some excellent competitors in this field who have wonderful products themselves like Periscope, Meerkat & YouNow.
The Lively Features
What makes InstaLively standout is that they have a much better scalable version of the live streaming technology owing to their tried and tested back-end which gets a whooping million hits a day! It focuses on Instant Audio/Video Digitization on low 3G bandwidths via the mobile app with just a flick of your thumb, InstaLively helps you broadcast the moments you wish to share with the world around you. InstaLively has also built Desktop Apps (Windows & Mac) to Live Stream from a Professional Camera. The niche that InstaLively caters to exclusively is its Uber-esque “Hire-a-Videographer” functionality which lets you hire a professional videographer who can look to your streaming needs based on your location.
The videos in InstaLively get stored automatically and it is also a huge plus (obviously). They are also the only company in this field that is helping bring in a new generation of YouTube celebrities by helping them get subscribers and letting them monetize their content. The constant feedback they have received regularly is that their videos scale much better on better screens than the other competitors and they do not force people to watch the videos from the app itself, (a blessing in disguise). Using Landscape mode instead of Portrait also gives them a view angle advantage over the others.
The Founders
Karthik Vaidyanath is the co-founder and CEO of the organization. He previously cofounded a startup in the FinTech space which raised a total of ~$170,000 from Investors in the US. Before venturing into the world of startups, he was also part of the O3 Capital India Investment Banking team based out of Mumbai, on transactions including M&A Advisory, Private Placements of Equity and Convertible Instruments and Restructuring Advisory Services. He was then focused on Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Semantic Search for Investment Analysis. He currently overlooks the overall product, leads the company’s strategic direction and fosters the culture of innovation. He possesses a keen sense of judgment and quick decisive skills.
Prakhar Khanduja, the cofounder is an AIESEC Alumnus and has held keen leadership positions and worked in various international teams in the organization. After dropping out of college he took up banking and worked with Barclays Bank PLC. Later he quit his lush corporate job to join the founding team of Instahyre. As Head of Business, he takes care of the business side of the organization including strategy, operations, sales, and marketing. His diverse experience inspires him to transform the human potential and empower society to adapt technology to make future generation mobile and independent.
“Using our first stable app was a moment that we will all be proud of”
InstaLively was founded in June 2014, the journey so far has had ups and downs like any other startup. They currently have a team of 20+ people and are expanding rapidly in all the fields with plenty of new and interesting opportunities opening up everyday. They used it to stream their office launch party which made it essentially the first stream of InstaLively. Covering Indian Fiesta Latina was also a pretty exciting moment for them as it was their first big coverage. Along the way they had to improvise and learn a lot but one article is not enough to talk about it.
The firm has broadcasted over 1000K+ minutes with 10K + viewers and recently filed a Patent in ‘Mobile Live Streaming to You Tube.’ InstaLively is bringing together the video delivery capabilities of YouTube with the real time reach of Social Media and is bound to take the social media landscape by storm in the coming days.
Lively Updates
The company aims to target the global live streaming market with fresh funding. The target market includes events ranging from entertainment to corporate to personal events (like Birthday parties, Weddings). InstaLively, has recently raised 120,000$ from six Angel Investors. The six Angel Investors who have invested about 75 lakhs (120,000$) into this new venture include some well known names such as Niraj Singh of Outbox Ventures; Mera Events; Rajan Anandan – MD, Google India; Amit Ranjan – Cofounder, Slide share; Rajesh Sawhney – Founder, GSF and AECAL – German investor.
So far they have expanded to all the metro cities with their interns and videographers hailing from Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Chandigarh and are looking to aggressively expand in the coming months to different parts of India with the app already on the Playstore. They aim at creating quality content for the masses at large. They are in talks with several quality content creators to do regular streams in fixed time slots so that viewers can watch it live. Apart from this they will be working to expand into the global market and incorporating newer functionalities in the application to keep it fresh and engaging.
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