eSports Startup Battlefy Raises $1.3M Seed Funding from Former Riot Games Board Member and Investor
Vancouver, British Columbia (PRWEB) January 14, 2014 -- Battlefy (http://www.battlefy.com), the most scalable and cost efficient turnkey eSports management platform, today announced another $1.3M in investments.
Deep Fork Capital led the most recent round for Battlefy, a graduate of the Amplify LA accelerator, with participation from William Morris Endeavor, Jarl Mohn (former board member and investor of Riot Games, former chairman of CNET), Dennis Phelps (partner at IVP), Social Starts (headed by Bill Lohse, former president Ziff Davis and SoftBank Forums), BDC Ventures, and Keith Boesky.
Jarl Mohn, former Board Member at Riot Games and Chairman at CNET said: “I believe that eSports is the next big entertainment and marketing investment thesis. When Riot Games can sell out Staples Center in 20 minutes so people can watch video gamers compete something massive is happening. Battlefy is one of the few companies perfectly positioned to help make this happen and be a huge part of the success.”
The League of Legends Season 3 World Championships recently proved that professional video gaming and the gamers who wow live crowds are cultural fixations just like traditional sports. The event sold out LA’s Staples Center in under an hour and attracted over 32M live viewers online. For perspective, the NBA Finals attracted 18M live viewers on ABC.
The Battlefy platform, which gives organizers of eSports tournaments and leagues a complete solution for managing video game competitions, has already powered 600+ virtual events to date, involving over 1.5M players and viewers.
Battlefy Co-founder and CEO Jason Xu said: “eSports thrives from the same elements of competition, fan fanaticism, and economics as traditional sports. Because participation and spectatorship is virtual, it presents an unprecedented opportunity for global scale, and Battlefy is best poised to deliver the backbone.”
Expanding on the point that scale is what the market is looking for, Paul Bricault, Managing Director of Amplify LA said: “With some 32 million fans tuning in to watch League of Legends Season World Championship at a sold-out Staples Center in October, eSports is just hitting its stride. Battlefy is now set to be the platform to serve that exploding global audience.”
In the past, gamers gathered on forums, IRC, and Facebook to host and join tournaments and leagues, discover broadcasts and replays, and discuss strategies -- those were the original “virtual courts”.
Battlefy provides virtual courts that eSports organizers can customize and scale to their needs through a platform that:
•Takes care of 90% of the technology requirements for eSports organizers, which reduces administration cost by up to 80%
•Allow online eSports competitions to scale economically beyond 1000 teams per event
About Battlefy
Battlefy’s turnkey technology allows eSports leagues to scale globally at a fraction of current costs. Built by gamers for gamers, Battlefy is the collaborative creation of luminaries in gaming, technology, and media.
For more visit http://www.battlefy.com
For more information contact:
Jason Xu, CEO
Jason AT battlefy.com
@JasonXuSD
or
Ryan Sommer, Director, MaintainPR
ryan AT maintianpr.com
(646) 220-4256
Skype: ryan.sommer1
@ryansommerHQ
For logos, resources:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eoxze0phb1jcjsk/Media%20Kit.zip
Jason Xu, Battlefy, +1 646-220-4256, [email protected]
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