Swift, the parent company of esports organisation Team SoloMid, has raised $37m in a Series A funding round, the company has revealed.
Ethan Kurzweil of Bessemer Venture Partners led the group of investors. The likes of NBA superstar Stephen Curry and Yahoo! Co-founder Jerry Yang have also invested in TSM.
Lead investor Kurzweil told Forbes:
“It was just really clear Andy was operating at the highest level. What he had done without any capital at all was two or three times as much as people who had raised a lot of money.”
Aside from Swift’s esports venture, investors were also buying into the company’s many other business operations. These include an influencer content network and analytics platforms like FortniteMaster and ProBuilds.
Vital funds
The organisation didn’t report the exact among of equity that it offered as part of the funding round. However, team founder Andy Dinh will remain the majority shareholder.
Some $10m of the raised funds will be invested in continuing to develop TSM as a leader in esports. This will include a 15,000 to 20,000 square foot training facility in Los Angeles, California. Another $20m will be used to cover franchising fees, such as that required to hold a spot in the North American League of Legends Champions Series.
The training facility in particular will be a huge boost for Dinh and his side. As esports continues to grow, so too does the level of skill on show across the top leagues. Ensuring that their players have access to the best facilities will help TSM to maintain their place among the top sides in games such as League of Legends and Hearthstone.
Speaking to Forbes after confirming the amount raised, Dinh said:
““TSM has always run a very lean operation, so we haven’t set ourselves up to take advantage of the fast growth that this market is experiencing, so that’s what we’re trying to prepare ourselves to do.
“We’ve got a really good group of investors. it’s going to help us accomplish what we want for TSM.”
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