Amazon has reportedly agreed to buy live-streaming service Twitch for over $1 billion.
Two people with knowledge of the situation said the deal could be announced as soon as Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal. People familiar with the matter also said that other tech giants have been in talks to buy Twitch, such as Google and Yahoo.
The merger would reportedly help Amazon provide its customers with more video-streaming offerings, and battle competitors like Netflix and Google's YouTube.
Launched in June 2011 by Justin Kan and Kyle Vogt, founders of Justin.tv, Twitch provides streamed content to gamers, such as gaming footage, online shows, and commentary, CNET reported. The company did not comment on the reported deal it has with Amazon, but it did say that 1.1 million unique broadcasters use the site each month, which is an improvement over receiving 60,000 in November last year. Over 55 million gamers stream their videos, and Twitch said users watch an average of 106 minutes of their offerings each day.
The deal would add to Amazon's current video-streams, which include Amazon Prime Instant Video and its media streaming device Fire TV, which was introduced last April and comes with an optional controller for playing video games.
Twitch was able to raise $20 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Thrive Capital, videogame-maker Take-Two Interactive Software, and other investors, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The streaming service would be the most successful product sold by Justin.tv, a video-streaming site founded in 2006. Other services sold by the site include social-video-sharing app Socialcam, which was bought by Autodesk in 2012 for $60 million, and housecleaning service Exec, was sold earlier this year for less than $10 million.
Update: Twitch announced Monday that it has been officially bought by Amazon for $970 million, Ars Technica reported. The deal will have Twitch continue to operate on its own and keep "most everything the same."
Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch, used the announcement to thank those who helped build the company, adding that "with Amazon's support we'll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch."
