Yesterday, Rally Cry announced that it has raised $1.2M USD in seed financing from a group of several industry veterans and other investors. Participants in the round included Mike Morhaime (Blizzard Entertainment co-founder), Amy Morhaime (former Blizzard Entertainment vice president of global esports), Kevin Lin (Twitch co-founder), Marc Merrill (Riot Games co-founder), Vincent Francoeur (former Blizzard Entertainment head of web and mobile), Andy Hyltin (CNL Holdings vice-chairman), Rich Newsome (partner at Newsome Law), and Paul Mears (Hello! Destination Management president).
Rally Cry was founded by brothers and entrepreneurs Adam and Tyler Rosen, who founded their first startup Tespa, a collegiate esports network, in 2010 and eventually sold it to Blizzard Entertainment in 2013. In the process of that acquisition, the brothers joined Blizzard where they were responsible for several esports tournaments, including collegiate Heroes of the Storm competition Heroes of the Dorm. Additionally, they were part of the leadership team that oversaw esports at BlizzCon and led business strategy and operations for Blizzard’s global esports.
The Rosen brothers left Blizzard last year before founding Rally Cry earlier this year. So far, they have built a team of six, all of whom are former Blizzard employees.
“Adam and Tyler are experts at creating both professional and grassroots programs to support players from around the world,” said Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime, in a release. “With Rally Cry, they are filling a very important void in the gaming landscape.”
In September 2019, the group of Mike and his wife Amy Morhaime, Kevin Lin, and Marc Merrill invested into esports network startup Venn. Furthermore, Mike and Amy Morhaime participated in a $800K pre-seed investment round raised by esports streaming feeds aggregator Juked.gg last month.
