Grid Esports raises $10 million to generate data from esports
Grid Esports has raised $10 million in a round of funding to provide game companies and players with better competitive data.
The backers include Alinea Capital, Bumble Ventures, Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder, Agileo Ventures, and NFL player JuJu Smith-Schuster, and the money will help the Berlin-based company grow its data platform and expand its U.S. presence.
CEO Moritz Mauer founded the company three years ago to help gather better data about competitive gameplay such as esports. That data is useful to game developers, but it’s also useful for people who want to place bets on esports matches — something that has become a big business around the world.
The data can drive predictive models that can be used to calculate who will win matches. But it has other uses as well. Often, players are starving for more data than companies will typically share. That data can also help players become better at competitive gameplay, but companies often keep it to themselves and don’t realize that the data can be monetized.
“My career has been about esports, data, and betting,” Mauer said. “We started providing live data for esports betting.”
