Your Gaming and Esports Update
Queens Gaming Collective Raises $1.5M
Queen’s Gaming Collective has raised $1.5 million for a women-led gaming lifestyle brand. The initiative seeks to promote diversity in an industry that has been traditionally male-dominated. The group will form a collective of female gamers — known as Queens — who will be more effective influencers as part of this group. Alisa Jacobs, the group’s CEO, told GamesBeat that Queen’s Gaming Collective is “a lot of things,” primarily a “media and management company, with a lifestyle brand.”While there is some focus on content creation, the group’s main ambition is to grow brand recognition for these women.
PLLAY Closes $3M
PLLAY, a skill-based video game wagering platform, has closed a $3 million seed funding round led by Screen Play Ventures. Other investors in this round include NBA All-Star Bradley Beal, Managing Director of Obsidian Works and Hollywood insider Chad Easterling, and Russell Stokes, President and CEO of GE Power Portfolio. The capital will go toward further enhancing the user experience, expanding technology development, building out the PLLAY team, and accelerating user acquisition.
Gunzilla Games Raises $25M
Gunzilla Games has raised $25 million to make triple-A projects. It was started by former Crytek Kyiv studio leader Alex Zoll and serial entrepreneur Vlad Korolev, and it already has 70 employees. Zoll and Korolev funded the company through GameGroove, a holding entity that pooled their resources to invest in a number of companies (Gunzilla included). Gunzilla is based in Los Angeles and has studios in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Frankfurt, Germany. The team is working on an unannounced shooter.
Updates
NRG Reveals $10M ‘Gaming Fantasy Factory’
NRG is stepping up its creation game with a new, 20,000 square-foot facility that the company is calling a “gaming fantasy factory” in the heart of Los Angeles. The NRG Castle was designed as a place for NRG players and creators to have a space to work on content, but the organization also wants it to be a place where collaboration around gaming is the focus.
Roblox Officially Files for IPO
Roblox has filed for an initial public offering, according to a securities filing late Thursday. The company disclosed last month it had submitted confidential paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Roblox said in its prospectus it plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RBLX. The company filed to sell $1 billion in shares. Roblox said it had “experienced rapid growth” in recent quarters as its users have been more online due to COVID-19-related shelter-in-place policies. The San Mateo, Calif., company said its daily active users rose 82% to 31.1 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30, from 17.1 million in year-ago period. Revenue grew 68% to $588.7 million in the same timespan, Roblox said. The company’s losses widened, however, to $203.2 million in the first nine months of this year from $46.3 million in the year-ago period.
