In recent years, live-streaming has experienced a meteoric rise, particularly with the introduction of platforms like TikTok and YouTube. On Twitch, the most streamed game used to be GTA until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Following the outbreak, people began to live-stream more casually, with the “Just Chatting” category surpassing GTA as the most popular in 2021.

Since then, the “Just Chatting” trend has continued to grow on Twitch and other platforms. Many streamers simply go live, chatting with their audience without engaging in any specific activity. While this format has gained popularity, it often leads to a monotonous experience for both the streamer and viewers.

Inspired by the gaps observed, Qene Games, Ethiopia’s first game development studio and the creator of award-winning mobile games Kukulu and Gebeta, sought to create a more interactive and engaging experience for streamers and their audiences.

They realized that while live-streaming can be lucrative, with followers and gifts contributing to a streamer’s growth, the experience itself is often draining and boring for both parties.

As a result, Beemi was born, marking Ethiopia’s first live-streaming platform. The development of Beemi was a year-long odyssey, involving countless iterations and refinements. “We have created around 170 different versions,” Dawit Abraham, co-founder and CEO of Qene Games, told Shega.

How Beemi Works

The platform, which offers a trivia game, and an AI trivia generator specifically designed for this purpose, enables users to connect to their existing platforms, such as TikTok and YouTube, the same way Twitch does.

By integrating games into the live stream, Beemi aims to make its case for an experience that’s fun, engaging, inclusive, and tailored for specific needs.

To use Beemi, you need to be live on your existing platform, either YouTube or TikTok. Start a live stream on the apps using your phone. Once it’s running, open the Beemi app and choose the trivia game. Tap on “stream on YouTube” and enter your YouTube username or channel name to link the two.

Beemi will then start reading comments from your live YouTube stream. When someone answers a trivia question correctly, Beemi will grab their profile picture and name from the chat and show them in the game. This will also add them to the leaderboard.

On August 7, Qene Games hosted a vibrant gathering of TikTok creators and community members at the Saphire Hotel to celebrate its remarkable achievements.

Kinet Live Games: A Showcase of Beemi’s Potential

Beemi is gaining traction mainly by leveraging a successful use case, Kinet Live Games. Kinet Live Games is a YouTube channel created by Qene Games to live stream some of the Beemi games run by Qene itself.

While the app Beemi has only over 500 downloads, Kinet Live Games has garnered over 50,000 subscribers.

In the three days leading up to the Ethiopian New Year, Qene Games hosted several games on Beemi and live-streamed them on Kinet Games in partnership with Cooperative Bank of Oromia, awarding 175,000 birr to winners.

Beemi has also secured sponsorships for Kinet and is currently engaged in discussions with other major brands for potential partnerships.

Established in 2019, Qene Games is a venture-backed startup that aims to develop gaming capacity on the African continent by mentoring, recruiting, and upskilling African game developers.

In February 2023 Carry1st, the continent’s leading publisher of games and digital content, acquired Gebeta, Qene Games’ first product, released in 2019.

Qene Games’s latest endeavor has also caught the attention of notable investors, including Vibe Capital and Antler, Africa’s largest investors, who participated in Beemi’s pre-seed funding round last year.

“We have raised undisclosed but a sizable pre-seed from investors like Antler and Vibe Capital,”  Dawit confirmed. According to him, they have also attracted investment from angel investors in the U.S., such as Nicolas Larico and Nagi Prasad.

Beemi has not monetized its platform yet. “Our primary focus is on building a valuable platform for streamers,” says Dawit. “Once we’ve established a strong user base, we can explore monetization options that align with our mission.”

Highlighting the time frame of the development and the different versions, Dawit noted, “We are constantly testing new things and creating new versions every time.” This, according to the CEO, helps them discover many things, including what users want, what streamers don’t have, and what is lacking in the market.

“Through this iterative process, we have learned valuable lessons, including the importance of trivia as a key feature for streamers.”  Currently, between 10-20 streamers utilize this feature weekly, with a steadily growing user base.

They have also built and scratched some games because they discovered they are not that important through this process.

Initially, the trivia feature was designed to simplify user content creation.

“We didn’t want our creators to be bothered by creating trivia content.” To address the challenge of finding suitable trivia questions, an AI-powered generator was integrated. This tool allows users to input a topic, such as “the history of Manchester United,” and receive a set of generated trivia questions. These questions can then be directly uploaded and used in live streams within the app, according to Dawit.

The trivia generator leverages the GPT-4 API to produce questions tailored to the user’s specifications. For local languages such as Amharic, where GPT-4 may not perform optimally, a manual creation option is available. Users can manually input questions, answers, and correct choices.

“And a lot of people have started doing this. They’ve created different types of trivia, like “finish the music lyrics trivia” and “Ethiopian History Trivia.” Some people have even created religious trivia, which makes it a very open platform for people.” Dawit told Shega.

Beemi’s unique features address the need for more interactive live streams, catering to influencers, brands, webinar organizers, and game shows alike. By breaking down the barriers between content creators and their audiences, Beemi fosters a more engaging and participatory experience, allowing viewers to actively engage with the stream through mini-games, trivia, and real-time recognition of their contributions.