Stream
Techstars '15Boulder, US · 15 known investors
Stream provides infrastructure for building AI applications and real-time communication features including chat, video, feed, and moderation across multiple platforms. The company serves developers and enterprises building multi-modal AI applications and communication-enabled apps.
Also known as getstream.io · Stream.io
Founders & leadership
Investors · 15
Also in the syndicate · 3
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements$90M disclosed across 1 of 2 rounds · 2026
- Undisclosed amountSeries DJan 2026 · 2 sources
Sofina (lead), Ascension Ventures, Balderton, Better Society Capital, British Business Bank, LocalGlobe Latitude, Northzone, Smash Capital
Source ↗ - $90MraisedJan 2026 · 3 sourcesSource ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Stream (getstream.io) is a developer infrastructure company that provides APIs and SDKs for adding real-time features to applications: chat messaging, video and audio calling (including audio rooms and livestreaming), activity feeds, content moderation, and multi-modal AI agents. All primitives run on shared infrastructure, which the company positions as an alternative to assembling multiple point tools or building real-time systems in-house.
The product surface spans pre-built UI components and low-level clients across more than ten SDKs, including React, Swift/iOS, Android/Kotlin, React Native, Flutter, Angular, JavaScript, Unity, Unreal and ESP32 on the client side, and Node, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, .NET, Go and REST on the server side. Platform-level capabilities include authentication and tokens, users, permissions and roles, multi-tenancy and teams, GDPR handling, webhooks and SQS integration, push notifications, rate limits and async operations. The moderation product performs real-time screening of text, image, video and audio using LLM-driven classification, with a custom rule builder, review queues, audit logs, and stated compliance support for the DSA, Online Safety Acts and COPPA. A newer open-source Vision AI SDK / Vision Agents platform targets low-latency voice-and-vision AI agents with features such as RAG, tool use, phone calling, pose tracking, object detection and avatars, and plugin integrations with Gemini, Whisper, ElevenLabs, Roboflow and other services via MCP. Stream also ships a CLI and installable "agent skills" so AI coding agents can scaffold Stream integrations.
Operationally, the company describes unified global infrastructure across six edge and data center locations, sub-9ms latency, offline support, a Go-based backend, a 99.999% uptime SLA, and SOC 2 compliance.
Founding story
Stream's team page describes an origin spanning Amsterdam, Boulder and Techstars; Product Hunt lists the company as launched in 2014 and identifies it with Techstars NYC 2015. Thierry is listed as CEO & Founder and Tommaso as CTO & Founder.
Business model
Stream sells API and SDK access to real-time communication and AI infrastructure on a self-serve plus enterprise basis: the site offers a free "Start Coding Free" entry point alongside a "Contact Sales" path for larger deployments.
Sources describe a free developer tier and a sales-led enterprise motion, but do not disclose pricing tiers, contract values, or revenue figures.
Traction
Company-reported figures include 1+ billion active end users, 2,000+ global apps on the homepage and 4,000+ apps built with Stream on the team page, a 120+ person global team spanning 35 nationalities, four offices, and ten years in business. Product Hunt shows 10 launches, a 5.0 rating from 2 reviews and 24 followers.
Latest developments
Stream is promoting an open-source Vision AI SDK and Vision Agents platform for multi-modal AI agents, LLM-driven AI moderation with regulatory compliance workflows, and CLI/agent-skill tooling aimed at AI coding assistants. A Product Hunt reviewer from a Realtime API provider describes Vision Agents as one of the first open-source projects built on their Realtime API. The company is hiring for four roles across Skopje, Amsterdam and Boulder.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Stream positions itself as a single platform covering every real-time primitive rather than a set of point tools, emphasizing scale (1+ billion end users, 2,000+ global apps per the homepage; 4,000+ apps per the team page), SOC 2 compliance from day one, and SDKs maintained by 50+ engineers. Product Hunt lists Discord, Dyte, Telegram and LiveKit among similar products.
Stated differentiators are breadth of real-time primitives on shared infrastructure, developer experience (10+ SDKs, typed APIs, integration in under 50 lines to first message), latency and reliability guarantees, customizable UI components with open APIs and no lock-in, and an open-source, self-hostable AI agent stack.
Technology
A Go-based real-time backend delivered through unified global infrastructure with six edge and data center locations, an advertised ~9ms API response time and sub-9ms latency, offline support, and a 99.999% uptime SLA. Developer-facing layers include typed APIs, pre-built and customizable UI components, low-level clients, backend SDKs, webhooks and SQS integration. The Vision Agents platform adds edge-agnostic routing, low-latency multi-modal pipelines and modular plugins, and is described as open-source and self-hostable.
Go-to-market
Product-led developer acquisition combined with direct enterprise sales. Entry points include a free coding tier, extensive public documentation and quickstarts, 10+ SDKs and UI kits, a CLI, installable agent skills for AI coding assistants, an open-source presence (Vision AI SDK, and earlier Winds RSS/podcast apps and a Sketch UI kit released on Product Hunt), and industry-specific solution pages. The company also runs dedicated sales development roles for the AI Moderation and Video products.
Developers and engineering teams at consumer and enterprise application companies that need in-app chat, feeds, video or moderation. The site organizes solutions by vertical, including AI chat bots, education, dating, financial services, gaming, healthcare (HIPAA-compliant communication), live shopping, marketplaces, on-demand services and real money gaming.
Geography
Four offices: Boulder (USA), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Skopje (North Macedonia) and Toronto (Canada), with a globally distributed team and infrastructure across six edge and data center locations. Open roles are posted in Skopje, Amsterdam and Boulder.
History
Product Hunt records the company as launched in 2014 and associates it with the Techstars NYC 2015 program. Early public releases included the Based Mobile social UI kit for Sketch (2017), the open-source Winds RSS reader (2016) and Winds 2.0 RSS/podcast app (2018), followed by a 2019 Product Hunt launch of the feeds-and-chat API. The team page states ten years in business and cumulative fundraising of over $58.25 million. The product line has since broadened from feeds and chat to video/audio, AI moderation and open-source multi-modal AI agents.
Risks & controversies
No controversies are documented in the available sources. Note that several sources returned for the query concern unrelated companies also named Stream (a San Francisco workers' compensation document AI startup and a UK workplace finance provider formerly called Wagestream) and were excluded. The company's own materials report inconsistent app counts (2,000+ vs 4,000+) and a total funding figure of $58.25M that differs from other records.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Competitors · 4
by search overlap
Companies competing with Stream for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 7
launches, deals, and filingsStream ships a CLI for managing apps, users and data, plus installable 'Agent Skills' that teach coding agents such as Claude Code how to build with Stream SDKs.
Stream promotes a new open-source Vision AI SDK and developer platform (Vision Agents) for building low-latency, multi-modal voice and video AI agents supporting RAG, tool use, phone calling, pose tracking, object detection and avatars, with plugin support for Gemini, Whisper, ElevenLabs, Roboflow and any API via MCP. Documentation lists Vision Agents under the Video and Audio SDK section.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Streamgetstream.io · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Stream do?
- Stream sells APIs and SDKs for in-app chat, video, activity feeds, moderation and real-time AI agents.
- Who founded Stream?
- Stream was founded by Thierry Schellenbach.
- Who are Stream's investors?
- Stream's investors include Techstars, Felicis Ventures, Social Starts, Upslope Ventures, UpVentures Capital, V1 VC, Arthur Ventures, Ascension Ventures and 4 more.
- How much funding has Stream raised?
- Stream has disclosed $90M raised across 1 of its 2 known rounds.
- Where is Stream headquartered?
- Stream is headquartered in Boulder, US.