- BITKRAFT Esports Ventures raises a $125M USD venture capital fund, according to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
- Besides BITKRAFT founding partner Jens Hilgers, the filing lists Malte Barth and Scott Rupp as “related persons.”
- The previous BITKRAFT fund, setup as an early stage investor and company builder, previously raised $18.5M in 2017, to invest in and incubate esports startups.
BITKRAFT Esports Ventures 
is raising a venture capital fund of up to $125M, according to a document filed on Dec. 19 with the United States SEC. Privately held companies that raise capital in the U.S. are required to file a “Form D” with the SEC, which informs investors of basic information about the company. These forms must be filed no later than 15 days after the first sale of securities in the offering; i.e. when an investor is under contract to provide funding.
This new BITKRAFT fund appears to be expanding from just early stage investment to a later stage growth fund.
This is the second venture capital fund by Hilgers, which continues to be operated under the known name BITKRAFT. The total amount sought after is over $100M higher than 2017’s reported $18.5M seed fund, which made BITKRAFT esports’ most active investor in The Esports Observer’s 2018 investor ranking. The first BITKRAFT fund is an early stage investor and company builder, focused entirely on founding, supporting, and scaling companies in the esports sector.
With a size of $125M and additional senior key executives on the team, this new BITKRAFT fund appears to be expanding from just early stage investment to a later stage growth fund.
Alongside CEO and co-founder of DOJO Madness, Jens Hilgers, two of BITKRAFT’s other founding partners appear in the filing as “related persons;” Industry Advisor EQT, Malte Barth; and U.S. managing director for Modern Times Group (MTG), Scott Rupp. MTG holds a majority share in Turtle Entertainment, the owner of the ESL brand, and owns the entirety of DreamHack .
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BITKRAFT’s first venture capital fund was led by Hilgers with participation from Delivery Hero co-founder Markus Fuhrmann, who put up $11.5M. An additional $7M came from other investors including GGV Capital co-founder Hany Nada, New York investment bank Inner Circle Sports, Team Liquid parent company and Epic Games investor aXiomatic , Modern Times Group, and various influential media and entertainment investors and executives.
So far, 19 early-stage esports startups have received funding from BITKRAFT. These include esports nutrition company Runtime.gg, esports audience monetization platform FanAI , and Esports Business Solutions UG —the company behind The Esports Observer (TEO). In October 2018, Advance Publications completed its acquisition of TEO, marking the first exit for a BITKRAFT portfolio company.
