Krikey: Delivering Goosebumps 2 and other powerful mobile AR gaming experiences worldwide

About Krikey

Krikey develops an Augmented Reality (AR) mobile gaming app that enables people to play and share videos featuring 3D AR games that interact with the real world. The San Francisco-based startup was founded by two sisters who were Stanford University students at the time. The sisters also produced the documentary True Son, which premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. The Krikey team is 48 percent women, underlining the company's commitment to equal and diverse representation among employees.

Industries: Media & Entertainment
Location: United States

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In the past few years, mobile Augmented Reality (AR) has grown into a phenomenon that revolutionizes how people experience entertainment. The market potential is huge. But so are the technology demands in delivering a seamless AR video and game experience. With those demands in mind, Krikey — developer of a 3D AR game for sharing videos and interacting with the real world — turned to Google Cloud.

Google Cloud results

  • Saves hundreds of hours by not having to set up its own infrastructure
  • Delivers seamless gaming experience even in low-bandwidth areas
  • Scales automatically to accommodate spikes in usage and video sharing

Gains thousands of players in weeks with only $1 IT spend

Enabling Change

Solutions: Web, Mobile and E-commerce

Krikey launched in 2017 with Google Cloud serving as the cloud infrastructure for its mobile AR app. "We looked around and it quickly became clear Google Cloud was the way to go," says Ketaki Shriram, CTO at Krikey. "Google provides great customer service, a truly robust range of services, strong reliability, and extensive global reach with its data centers. As we push into new and emerging markets, especially in areas with low bandwidth, Google Cloud lets us deliver a great and reliable gaming experience."

Krikey leverages Firebase for its mobile app development and performance improvement, with Firebase Cloud Messaging enabling the company to easily implement and track push notifications on iOS and Android, which is a key metric for customer retention. Cloud Storage stores the app's video, image, and game files; BigQuery stores anonymized session logs, from which the company can gain insights into how people interact with the Krikey app; Looker Studio provides analytic visualizations from BigQuery; and Cloud SQL, which Krikey is migrating to, stores the mobile and web app data that powers the Krikey app.

A high number of cloud database operations, which handle millions of database writes, are needed to deliver seamless Krikey app experiences. Nonetheless, Krikey hasn't experienced any service interruptions thanks to Google Cloud. "That's so important for us as we continue to grow," Ketaki adds.

Krikey team members can visualize and better understand how customers are using the app in real time. "With BigQuery and Looker Studio, we get granular details about users' experiences right away, so we can scale or make other adjustments as needed to deliver the best experience possible," Ketaki says.

The reputation of Google and use of Google Cloud helped the young company attract big partners like Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, with which Krikey collaborated on Goosebumps 2 AR games. "The high reliability and stable performance of Google Cloud gives us the level of trust we need to attract strategic content partners, which will be even more important in the years to come," says Jhanvi Shriram, CEO at Krikey.

Leveraging the Google Cloud for Startups program which provides Cloud credits, mentorship, and training, Krikey was able to scale quickly and easily.

"Because Google Cloud is easy to start using, we were able to gain thousands of users in weeks while spending only $1 to get started and just $5,000 for the entire year on back-end infrastructure. As a startup, we need cost-effective scalability, and Google Cloud truly provides it."

Ketaki Shriram, CTO, Krikey

Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.

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About Krikey

Krikey develops an Augmented Reality (AR) mobile gaming app that enables people to play and share videos featuring 3D AR games that interact with the real world. The San Francisco-based startup was founded by two sisters who were Stanford University students at the time. The sisters also produced the documentary True Son, which premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. The Krikey team is 48 percent women, underlining the company's commitment to equal and diverse representation among employees.

Industries: Media & Entertainment
Location: United States