Polygon Studios-backed Yesports closes oversubscribed USD2.25m round to launch Esports Web 3.0 Engagement
The heavily oversubscribed round includes, Spartan, YBB Foundation, Kernel Ventures, and NGC Ventures
Singapore, 18 January 2022 — Yesports, the world’s first Esports Web 3.0 Engagement, today closed an oversubscribed seed round of USD2.25m from top venture partners, including Polygon Studios, Kernel Ventures, and NGC Ventures. The funds raised will go toward the development of the non-fungible token (NFT)-based esports marketplace and esports-focused metaverse, Yesports.
Yesports represents the first cross-chain Web 3.0 Engagement Platform (W3EP) designed to enable 500M+ esports fans worldwide to engage fully with their favourite teams in Web 3.0. The Yesports platform will provide access to exclusive content, community initiatives, merchandise, and more by acquiring or holding NFTs.
Through the sale of NFTs, esports teams partnered with Yesports will be able to engage with their fan communities in ways never seen before, while benefiting from new, sustainable revenue streams.
The raise follows an initial grant from the $100m gaming-centred NFT fund Polygon Studios founded in July.
The list of Yesports’ top tier venture partners continue to grow as the project excitement heightens — now including: Zipmex, GTA Ventures, YBB Foundation, Kosmos Capital, Kernel Ventures, Mozaik Capital, MEXC Global, Polygon Studios, NGC Ventures, Spartan, International Blockchain Monetary Reserve (IBMR) as well as George Samman and Proud Limpongpan as individual backers.
Via the Yesports marketplace, fans can trade esports NFTs across a range of ecosystems, including Moonbeam, Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), and other EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchains. Yesports will also collaborate with teams to provide fans with a private metaverse experience, allowing them to vote using Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) tokens and access clubhouses and private team NFT marketplaces.
NFTs are the first real commercial use case within the metaverse, and Yesports is already working with some of the biggest names in esports, including heavyweights such as BOOM Esports and Fact Revolution, to mastermind their NFT strategies, thereby receiving overwhelming support from large venture partners in the industry.
Sebastian Quinn, CEO and Founder of Yesports said: “Web 3.0 and the emerging metaverse allow for much greater fan participation, engagement, and ownership. Yesports is the Web 3.0 upgrade the esports sector has been waiting for and will serve as a portal for esports fans to participate in this new paradigm. We can’t wait to get building with teams all over the world.”
The esports market holds great potential to yield a sizable profit for all involved, especially when considering the phenomenal growth the sector has experienced in recent years. Global esports revenues are set to reach an estimated $1.1 billion in 2021, up more than 14.5% year-on-year from $947.1 million in 2020. The industry is expected to become worth approximately $1.9 trillion by 2026.
The market also boasts one of the highest levels of engagement, with the global live-streaming audience expanding at a CAGR of 15.7% from 2017 to 2022. The global games live-streaming audience is expected to hit 728.8 million this year, more than 10% higher than 2020 and 920.3 million by 2024.
Steven Bryson-Haynes, VP of Business Development, NFT & Gaming at Polygon Studios, said: “The team at Yesports are building something extremely valuable to the rapidly developing Web 3.0 landscape. The esporting sector’s fan base and viewing figures are expanding all the time and Yesports will galvanize this by enabling an outlet for fan engagement. We’re really excited to be part of this round and look forward to supporting the project in the months to come.”
The interoperable W3EP is built on an early grant from Polygon, an Ethereum-based scaling solution. In recent months, Polygon has become the leading go-to platform for NFT projects, including Dolce & Gabbana, OpenSea, NFT artist Beeple, DraftKings, Tom Brady’s Autograph, and Mark Cuban’s Lazy.com.
Register for early access: https://yesports.gg
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