Almost one year ago, I was about to graduate from my MBA at INSEAD amidst a pandemic, finding myself at a crossroad of various career paths. I was mainly debating between a career as an entrepreneur or as a venture capital investor (you can read more about it here). Almost…

VC funds are the most active esports investors Number of esports investors has grown exponentially over the years Based on data from various databases (Tracxn, Dealroom and others), we estimate that currently there are about 400 esports institutional investors. We define esports investors as angels, incubators, venture funds, corporate companies and private equity funds that have done at least one investment in an esports company. …

Esports investing journey from niche to mainstream In our previous article, Esports market shows first signs of maturity, we briefly discussed the increase in investments attracted by the esports industry, driven by the rise of mega rounds. …

Players and viewers are equally important to esports monetization going forward Monetization remains the key pain point in esports Esports remains significantly under-monetized compared to traditional sports. This industry view is also confirmed by PwC’s Sports Survey 2019, in which 87.6% of the 563 industry leaders across 50 countries ranked esports as the sport with the highest revenue growth potential (PwC Sports Survey 2019).

Direction of esports funding and exit opportunities suggest esports market is slowly maturing —

Lessons learned from NPR’s podcast “How I Built This?” — Two months away from my MBA graduation, I find myself at a crossroad between two career paths — entrepreneurship and venture capital. As I shared my frustration with my best friends, one of them recommended NPR’s podcast “How I Built This?” hosted by Guy Raz. “It’s as close as it…