Pakistan’s Trivzia raises $400,000 seed for its live trivia game show app

Lahore-based live video streaming platform Trivzia has raised a little over $400,000 (PKR 65 million) in a seed round from Pakistan-focused 47 Ventures, it announced in a statement today. The startup runs a mobile-app based live trivia game show, Jeeto Naye Andaz Say, where participants get a chance to win money by answering ten multiple-choice questions.

Founded in late 2019 by Waqqas Alvi, Waqas Shahid, Jahnzaib Shahid, and Ejaz Rana, Trivizia’s game show, Jeeto, goes live at 10 PM every day and is joined by up to 10,000 participants. Its mobile app has over half a million downloads on Play Store. The users who want to participate have to join the show from the beginning and keep answering questions as they’re shared by the host and appear on their mobile screens. They get 10 seconds to answer each question and are taken to the next level if they answer it correctly. Those who answer all the ten questions correctly share the announced prize pool.

I gave the app a spin and participated in one of their shows last week. Even though I wasn’t able to answer all the ten questions correctly, I enjoyed my experience of participating in the game show and learned new things in the process. I kept watching the rest of the show and over 500 people ended up winning the show who had to shared a prize of PKR 15,000 between them – which basically meant less than PKR 30 for each of the winners.

Game shows have always been very popular in Pakistan but the founders of Trivzia started working on their product with the aim to make them more accessible. The live game shows hosted by TV channels in Pakistan are normally joined by a few dozen people in the studio. With Jeeto Naye Andaz Say, the Lahore-based startup wants to enable anyone in Pakistan to be able to become part of a similar experience for entertainment, learning, and rewards.

Trivzia is currently working on real-time market research and digital advertising solution to enable brands to promote their products using its platform, its co-founder Waqaas Alvi told MENAbytes, adding that it will become the company’s primary revenue stream.

In a statement, he said, “The challenges of live streaming media have already been addressed by Youtube live, Facebook Live and other social platforms but with Jeeto Naye Andaz Say, we are handling the complexities of interactive live streaming at scale. Our user base is increasing every day and optimizing the technology to overcome this challenge is something this funding round will help us achieve.”

Khurram Zafar, Country Director for 47 Ventures Investment, said, “The amazing team at Trivzia is building the future of live, interactive, mass communication. Skill-based, live, interactive, rewards game show is just the beginning. We are excited about what lies ahead: more frequent and specialized shows, educational content for younger demographics, and development of a real-time, market research & digital advertisement platform.”

The startup plans to use the funds to grow its user base, augment the team, and strengthen its streaming platform to scale and handle millions of concurrent players.