The rise of e-sports

Fantasy eSports provider AlphaDraft recently emerged from a seed financing round with $ 4.2 million in funds raised from investors Melo7Tech, Metaphorphic and none other than former NBA commissioner David Stern among others.

AlphaDraft offers fantasy e-Sports line-up’s on professional video gaming team sports rather than the usual actual real person live-sports covered by companies such as DraftDay, DraftKings and FanDuel.

The company recently expanded its offer with support for ten pro leagues competing in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, SMITE and another game yet to be announced.

SuperData Research says 134 million people worldwide currently watch e-sports, giving rise to lucrative opportunities and the rise of two other start-ups Unikrn and Vulcun who move in the same market as AlphaDraft.

According to Vulcun founder Ali Moiz, fantasy eSports is likely to become a $250 million a year industry by 2020.

“This is a very big space with much potential,” Todd Peterson, chief executive officer of AlphaDraft said. “If the video game industry currently rivals the size of traditional sports as a whole, and eSports is the size of any of the major individual sports, there’s a lot of room for friendly competition and further specialization, as the industry matures.”

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