Rewired.GG invests 14 million euros to help Team Vitality expand in India

The e-sports team, founded in 2013 with 10,000 euros, aims to be one of the world's first $1-billion e-sports teams

Rewired.GG, a 50-million-euro e-sports venture fund that invests in global growth of e-sports, has announced that it has invested 14 million euros more in Team Vitality, taking its total investment in the team to date to 34 million euros.

Team Vitality will use the funds to expand into India, where it will acquire new players and launch a network of e-sports academies.

The team, founded in 2013 with 10,000 euros, aims to be one of the world’s first $1-billion e-sports teams. Today’s investment, along with the 20 million euros that Team Vitality received from Rewired.GG in November 2018, is thought to be the largest investment into a European esports team to date.

E-sports, also known as electronic sports, are a form of competitive sports using video games.

Rewired.GG forecasts that e-sports will rival traditional sports like soccer and basketball and will be a major investment category for institutional investors, funds and investment managers. By 2020, it is estimated that monthly global e-sports audience size will be nearly 600 million, equivalent to the current global audience of the English Premier League.  

In 2017, e-sports were estimated to have generated $655 million in annual revenue, including 38 per cent from sponsorships and 14 per cent from media rights. By 2022, it is forecast that media rights would reach 40 per cent of total e-sports revenue and that total global e-sports monetisation would reach $3 billion, said the company.

Amit Jain, principal at Rewired.GG, said: "Any industry with an audience that’s growing rapidly into hundreds of millions is hugely exciting and e-sports is no exception. We’ve seen the current e-sports trend many times before in the tech sector: First the number of eyeballs grows exponentially, and then comes full monetisation. We believe that e-sports is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries today, especially in India, and the success of teams like Team Vitality shows that there is a real opportunity for growth in this market. We are well on the way to building one of the world’s first billion-dollar e-sports team.”