Esports Business Review

Epic closes massive funding round

Epic Closes $1.25 Billion Round

Epic Games, creator of the hit titles Fortnite and Gears of War and owner of the Unreal Engine game development suite, closed a $1.25 billion round. The round was lead by KKR and included investors like ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Light Speed Ventures. Epic is now valued at more than $15 billion. According to Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, “We’re excited to partner with the finest minds in the financial, sports, and entertainment communities. This reinforces Epic’s position of leadership in real-time 3D technology, and accelerates our ability to improve the way people play, work, and interact with the world.” Many gaming enthusiasts know Epic for their hit battle royale game, Fortnite. One thing to note is that Fornite has been a commercial success but is an unproven success in the realm of esports. The real value in Epic Games is the scalability of their Unreal Engine.

GamingMonk, Esports Tournament Platform, Closes $543k Round

GamingMonk is an esports tournament platform startup based in New Delhi. They’ve raised this round through lead investor Incubate Fund. They are a Japan-based venture capital fund focused on early-stage internet businesses. GamingMonk hopes this funding round allows them to “achieve its vision of providing a smooth, transparent and credible gaming platform for all the players.” The platform has already been used to host 200 competitive tournaments across the country with 35,000 participants. They currently run through two different business models: Offline Tournaments and Online Esports Portal. The round also included Stellaris Ventures, Smile Group, AdvantEdge and Samir Khurana.

Michael Jordan Invests in Team Liquid Parent Company, aXiomatic

Team Liquid’s parent company, aXiomatic, has raised an astonishing $50+ million this year. This round includes Michael Jordan, Curtis Polk, and David Rubenstein. This investment round continues the trend of steep investments into esports organizations in 2018. This year has seen teams like Cloud9, 100 Thieves, and Team SoloMid raise exorbitant amounts of money from high networth individuals and top VCs, aXiomatic is continuing these trends by closing their second round of the year. Other investors, and majority shareholders, include Ted Leonis (owner of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals), and Peter Gruber (owner of the Golden State Warriors).

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