Ignite Tournaments, a play-to-earn esports event organizer, said that it has raised $10 million (£ 7.5 million) in capital from investors to expand the company’s infrastructure and operations.
“The world’s first mobile play-to-earn esports tournament and streaming platform,” according to Ignite Tournaments. A $3 million (£2.3 million) seed round concluded in December 2021 and a $7 million (£5.3 million) strategic round closed in February 2022 make up the total investment.
Ignite Tournaments is a company that specializes in building platforms for competitive play-to-earn gaming. The startup claims that it can turn “any mobile game into a play-to-earn game,” and that competitions will be held in the future to take advantage of this. The competition prizes are distributed in the form of cryptocurrency and NFTs.
Animoca Brands, a well-known investor in the esports-blockchain industry, led the investment in February, with Infinity Ventures Crypto and Moon Holdings Fund.
“We are positive on Ignite Tournaments,” said Thomas Vu, a partner at Moon Holdings Fund and the former Head of Creative and Franchise at Riot Games. I always thought that a ‘plug-and-play’ tournament would benefit gamers when I was leading numerous strategic projects at Riot Games.
“It was only a matter of time before someone built such a platform.” I’m excited to see what Krystal and Tony have created, and I’m excited to help them with both play-to-earn and traditional gaming.”
Ignite Tournaments has also just teamed up with Crypto Gaming United, a metaverse-focused gaming guild. The two businesses announced that they would collaborate to build “player-owned tournaments” in the metaverse as part of their cooperation.
“Animoca Brands has developed its success by investing in and working with projects with strong fundamentals both in and beyond of the gaming industry,” said Robby Yung, CEO of North American Operations for Animoca Brands. We’re excited to both invest in and investigate merging our games with Ignite Tournaments in this fascinating context.”
Esports Insider says: Play-to-earn esports is a relatively new concept that is steadily gaining traction. Still, if Ignite Tournaments can deliver on its big claim of being able to turn any mobile game into a play-to-earn game, it may be huge for the mobile esports ecosystem. For the time being, we’ll have to wait and see.