New Round Of Funding Fuels FACEIT For Global Expansion
FACEIT, the UK-based competitive gaming platform, raised $15 million in Series A funding with the help of Anthos Capital, Index Ventures, and United Ventures.
With the raised capital, FACEIT will be able to expand its technology and platform, which already has a 3 million user base and is involved with hundreds of tournaments. Additionally, the company recently opened an office in Los Angeles to establish itself in North America and further strengthen relationships with U.S.-based developers, publishers, and other partners.
Funds to be put to good use
According to Niccolo Maisto, founder and CEO of FACEIT:
“With this round of funding, we will be able to further our three-pronged mission for a competitive gaming platform: a robust competitive community for players and organizers, an easy-to-implement competitive layer for developers, and custom offerings for brands, tied to their products and services.
We’re also expanding our services to offer our partners the same tools that FACEIT has been using to engage players with competitions at scale.”
FACEIT has been building solid relationships with major players from the eSports scene last year, including Twitch, Valve, Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting, and Hollywood‘s WME|IMG. According to the company, new game integrations, partnerships, and product features can be expected in the near future.
Alex Birns at Anthos Capital remarked:
“With an extremely strong, passionate, and driven team led by Niccolo, a rapidly growing community of players and tournament organizers, robust technology, and deep relationships throughout the industry, FACEIT is well-positioned to be the definitive platform across competitive gaming.
The eSports market is expected to undergo massive growth over the next several years, and FACEIT has the potential to shape how developers, players and brands participate in and experience the industry.”
“FACEIT has proven an ability to build mutually successful partnerships with game publishers, major media companies, and other industry leaders,” says Ben Holmes at Index Ventures. “The company is helping developers engage more deeply with their player base by offering an easy to integrate competitive layer into their games. FACEIT is emerging as a major player in the competitive gaming ecosystem.”
The company offers a software development kit that lets developers integrate matchmaking and tournaments into their titles to let gamers of all skill levels take part in competitive online games. Currently, FACEIT has full support for two games: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends, two of the hottest games in the market.
It is also in beta with Dota 2, and the company promises it is expanding to include more games soon.
FACEIT an active member of the eSports community
Not long ago, FACEIT participated in the launch of the first-ever competitive integrity program for eSports. The initiative is a partnership between FACEIT and Unikrn, a world-leading gaming, eSports betting, and entertainment company, and aims to improve the eSports industry through increased integrity in the business making process.
This proactive attitude shows that the company is in it for the long haul, and the ability to raise millions of dollars in investment money proves that the market sees it the same way. With its active user base, which, according to the company, engage in more than three game sessions per day on average, the company is well-positioned to expand its business globally.
Since: September 12, 2015
