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The South Korean startup developed the popular Azar app, a sort of ‘Tinder meets Chat Roulette’

South Korea’s HyperConnect, creator of popular app Azar, has raised US$8.6 million in Series B funding led by Softbank Ventures and Altos Ventures.  This follows the startup’s first seed round of US$2 million from Altos Ventures, in December 2014.

Also Read: Altos Ventures invests US$2M in video messenger startup Hyperconnect

Azar is a video chat app that lets users connect with each other instantaneously via a video-calling platform, or as the company describes, find “a penpal on video.”

It works similar to Tinder in the swiping function, and users can instantly connect to each other using video. Thus far, it has been downloaded 12 million times and has made 1 billion matches, according to the company.

Part of its success is owed to users outside of Asia, specifically in the Middle East and Turkey.

“Compared to other video messengers, Hyperconnect [uses] technology that requires less network bandwidth while maintaining high-quality resolution. It also [uses less] battery consumption. This’s why many of the users are in the Middle East and Turkey, where the Internet environment isn’t as fast as other countries. In addition, Azar is focused on ‘discovering new friends’ whereas other messengers are used for communication with known friend,” JP Lee, Investment Director of Softbank Ventures Korea told e27. 

The app is available in 21 different languages and is currently available in more than 200 countries.

Also Read: Nexus infuses US$2.5M into India’s conversational commerce app Goodbox

Image Credit: Azar 

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