Almost fifteen years back, the video games sector was popular while Esports was underground and Digital Sports tracking was something that only elite athletes could access. Now, there three billions of gamers across the world, 500 million sports monitoring smartwatches and trackers, and 600 million game stream fans.
As Game, Esports, and Digital Sports are becoming the mainstream ecosystem for entertainment, social, and economic life right now, Hiro Capital has invested in the innovators who are involved in building this future. The company was founded by gaming industry legend Ian Livingstone CBE, who is also the co-founder of Games Workshop, Inspired Entertainment co-founder Luke Alvarez and Cherry Freeman, Britain’s ‘Coolest Female Founder’ and co-founder of LoveCrafts.
Launches €100M fund
Hiro Capital launches €100 million funding to back EU and UK leaders in global Games, Esports, and Digital Sports sectors. Its partners will use the fund to accelerate the growth of nearly 20 UK and European Games and Sports innovators.
Fund team members
The fund team of 10 comprises the following members.
- Simon Cornwell, a former Partner and Investment Committee member at top European tech VC Amadeus Capital and the co-founder CEO of film and television studio, The Ink Factory.
- Spike Laurie, respected former executive at ESL and Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment
- Thomas Martens, founder CEO of Global Sportnet and pioneer of European football rights at UFA Sports
- Alistair Hopkins, a deep tech specialist with over 20 years in games, sports and network technologies and technology patents and IP.
Strikes the right balance!
Usually, the company will invest at the post-seed stage at Series A and B. The investment will back deep tech entrepreneurs and creative studios in Games, Esports and Digital Sports sectors and in sector-specific applications of AI, Wearables, Big Data, AR and VR technologies, Streaming, Mobile, and Cloud.
As it covers all the three sectors, Hiro Capital strokes a balance between sector-focused pattern-recognition and a wide breadth of scale and opportunities. It offers macro exposure to the three fast-growing sectors of the new gaming economy along with reputed founders with entrepreneurial backgrounds.
Hiro Capital fills the gap
Last year, the global revenue in Games, Esports and Digital Sports sectors surpassed those in music, video and Hollywood in the UK/EU. Well, Europe produced 123 PC and console game titles, which is higher than the103 and 78 from Asia and America respectively. Many major sports leagues and sports tech innovators are also EU/UK led. Fueling this growth, half of the top 30 mobile games across the world developed in EU/UK. Notably, there are 2500 game studios in the UK alone.
Though this region is a leading creator in this segment, only 2% of these studios receive VC funding. And, Europe’s total generalist VC investment in 2018 was just 20% as that in the US. Given that there is a significant investment gap in the local growth capital due to supply/demand mismatch and Hiro Capital fills it.
Stock photo from REDPIXEL.PL/Shutterstock
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