One of India’s leading online gaming companies, Global Esports (GE), has announced a multi-million dollar deal by raising their seed round of funding from Venture Catalysts (VCats). With the Esports industry growing at a rate of 38% YOY, this funding will enable GE to capitalise on the growing popularity of online gaming in Asia, which has more than 50% of the world’s players and audience in Esports. There has been more than $6 billion in funding since 2017 into the Esports industry.
A leading gaming company in India, GE, is being termed as a game changer in Esports industry in the Asian market, and this deal will help the company explore its potential and opportunities with guidance from venture capitalists and industry experts. The undisclosed seed funding is another achievement for Global Esports, which has been growing at a fast pace since its formation in November 2018.
Sharing more about the funding deal with VCats, 29-year-old Dr Rushindra Sinha, Co-Founder of Global Esports, said, “We’re extremely proud to announce that we’re the first Indian Esports company to have raised funding in this space. Our endeavour has always been to showcase the depth and expertise of Esports present in the Indian audiences. This investment from Vcats is a move in this direction and is bringing us closer to our goal of putting India on the Esports global map. India is in its nascent phase (in ESports) and we are perfectly poised to shape and mould the future of Esports in India for generations to come and we wish to really develop the space at a grassroots level in India while slowly establishing dominance in both Asia and the rest of the world.”
Unlike many other traditional Esports companies, GE has a very content-first approach. The Co-Founder Mohit Israney has a filmmaking background and has won prestigious accolades at the ‘Tribeca Film Festival’ and the ‘Beijing Film Festival’. He says “Video Games have been around for a while now, but Esports as an industry has really only boomed in the past 3 years and the primary driving force for that has been content. So it’s something that is one of the most essential pillars of what we do at Global Esports. Whether it be in the form of Frag Movies, Highlight Reels, Youtube / Twitch Live Streaming, Podcasts or a Web-Series / Docu-Series about gamers, we want to ensure that we captivate the audience with our content.”
Talking about the funding deal and future of Esports in India, CA Anuj Golecha, Co-Founder of Venture Catalysts said “The esports category is very new in India but Global Esports has been a leader in this category and has managed to make a huge mark in a very short time. Globally, esports has seen immense funding pumped in and it’s just the right time to see the same trend in India. We at Vcats see immense potential in the Esports space and are hoping this move opens up the entire ecosystem of Esports and gaming content in India.”
GE currently boasts of recently having broken the Fortnite World Record at the World Cup Qualifiers, as well as running the Overwatch India World Cup Team which will be representing our country at the Overwatch WorldCup 2019 later this year in Los Angeles at Blizzcon (One of the largest gaming conventions on earth with about 60,000 - 80,000 attendees in person and millions watching online). Recently their CS:GO team was crowned one of the top teams in the region and will be representing the Asia Pacific region at the CI Lan Tournament in Malaysia in October.