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League/Tournament Brands:
- AI-based training program developer Statespace announced a $2.5M USD funding round, bringing total funding to $4M.
- Statespace launched a free esports training program called Klutch in 2017, which is nearing 1M users.
- FirstMark Capital’s investment portfolio also includes Riot Games, Discord, and game developer Proletariat.
Statespace, developer of the AI-based esports training program Klutch, announced that it has raised $2.5M in a seed funding round led by FirstMark Capital. The round, which closed in “April or May,” brings total funding up to $4M, Statespace co-founder Wayne Mackey told The Esports Observer.
Other investors in the funding round included Expa, Lux Capital, and WndrCo. Investment amounts were not disclosed. Startup studio Expa initially invested $500K when the company launched in 2017, Mackey said, then another $200K in 2018 alongside $100K from angel investors and friends. FirstMark also invested $700K last year before investing again in 2019 with an undisclosed amount. Lux Capital and WndrCo are new investors to the group.
The demand for esports data has increased in recent years with applications ranging from performance training to player and game stats, viewership, sponsorship evaluation, and sports betting.
The Statespace team was founded by two New York University postdoctoral fellows and is made up of neuroscientists, data scientists, and game developers, among others. The company launched in 2017 with the goal of bringing data to esports in the way that traditional sports studies and trains athletic performance.
In 2017, Statespace launched Klutch, a data platform designed to analyze and train users in a variety of tasks. The Klutch Aim Lab, designed for first-person-shooters (FPS) like Call of Duty, is expected to surpass 1M users by the end of the month, Mackey said, adding that approximately 300K users are added per day.
Among brands like Pinterest and Airbnb, FirstMark Capital has invested in a number of gaming companies including League of Legends developer Riot Games, Discord, and multiplayer game developer Proletariat.
The Klutch data platform has partnered with the National Championship Series (NCS) as its official FPS training partner for 2019. The partnership, which was not formally announced, was first reported on TechCrunch and confirmed by Mackey.
