The gaming and e-sports media firm with headquarters in Bangkok and Singapore on Tuesday announced that it received an undisclosed amount of pre-Series A funding in an “oversubscribed” round. With the fresh capital, Ampverse aims to speed up its plan to expand in the region and develop proprietary technology solutions and a content studio.
Investors such as former Disney MD Robert Gilby, ex-Bain Capital Axel Wehr, Unruly Group MD Alex Khan, former ADA CEO Matt Sutton, goGame founder and CEO David Ng also participated, together with early-stage investor Vulpes, a backer of the Singapore unicorns PropertyGuru and Trax, via its Vulpes Special Opportunities Fund.
Founded in 2019, Ampverse operates and owns e-sports teams, gaming channels, original content programming, and publishing assets. Video gaming is for the company “a growing cultural marker,” especially in Southeast Asia, the fastest growing gaming market globally, with the vast majority (82%) of the urban online population considering themselves gamers, according to the gaming and e-sports analytics and market research firm Newzoo.
“The video gaming industry is displaying remarkable potential with vast opportunities for growth in Southeast Asia,” said co-founder and CEO Ferdinand Gutierrez.
Southeast Asia’s e-sports market has experienced a boom recently thanks to a growing middle-class population and flourishing economies. Singapore-based tech giant Sea Group (NYSE:SE), which was formerly known as Garena and used to be a pure gaming firm, became the first tech firm from the region to list on the New York Stock Exchange in 2017. Its shares have increased tenfold since the IPO.
Global revenue from e-sports is expected to grow to USD 1.1 billion in 2020, up 15.7% from USD 950.6 million in 2019, according to Newzoo.