London-based eSports organisation Fnatic has closed a $7 million investment round to grow its company and infrastructure.
Investment comes from the Raptor Group, which owns a football and a basketball team; Hannes Wallin, CEO and Founder of Fractal Design; and Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab.
The money will be used to add more team coaches, sports psychologists and analysts to its ever-expanding workforce. It will also build new facilities and create academy teams with the funding.
Opportunities to innovate
"ESports is at an incredible inflexion point right now, with lots of opportunities to innovate, so it's no secret that we're trying that with launching BUNKR or Fnatic Gear. All of these new initiatives take time, focus, and investment to do them right, which is what the money is helping to achieve," Fnatic Chairman and Co-Founder Sam Mathews told The Esports Observer.
"Furthermore, there's been a significant rise in player salaries across the board, due to all the outside investment into teams in general, so further investments were needed in order to stay competitive and increase our chances of success."
Fnatic recently created a team dedicated to mobile eSport Vainglory. It will be hosting the first Unified Live Championships for the game at London's O2 in May 2017.