Alongside the sale of its Call of Duty League franchise spot to 100 Thieves, Immortals Gaming Club announced that it has raised a $26m (~£19.76m) in a Series B-1 financing round.
The organisation plans to use the funding to continue growing its own Immortals team brand, alongside Brazil’s MIBR team brand and Gamers Club’s competitive matchmaking platform.
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Ari Segal, CEO of Immortals Gaming Club, commented in a release: “IGC is focused on investing aggressively in growth in competitive gaming, inclusive of our platform, non-team assets such as Gamers Club, and our core team brands Immortals and MIBR. We’ve enjoyed strong growth in our non-team asset portfolio and are excited to leverage a strong balance sheet and focus our energy, time, capital, and other resources on these aspects of the business, as well as current and future esports team assets that authentically serve and deliver for gaming communities around the world.”
The round was led by the family office of Meg Whitman, already an Immortals Gaming Club investor and board member. She is also the CEO of soon-to-shutter streaming video platform Quibi and former CEO of both eBay and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Further investors included AEG and March Capital Partners.
“This Series B-1 round represents our board and investor group’s ongoing excitement about the opportunities available in this dynamic, diverse, and fast-growing market,” said Whitman, in a release.
Immortals purchased the rights to a Los Angeles franchise spot in Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty League ahead of this year’s inaugural season, and operated the OpTic Gaming Los Angeles team brand this season. However, the team announced on Friday that it had sold the spot to 100 Thieves for an undisclosed amount.
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The organisation still holds the Los Angeles Valiant franchise in Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch League, as well as a franchise in Riot Games’ League of Legends Championship Series (LCS). Immortals also fields a team in Riot Games’ Valorant. Immortals Gaming Club will use the Series B-1 funds in part to expand the Gamers Club platform to new regions and add further game titles and services.
Steve Cohen, Immortals Gaming Club board member, EVP of The Anschutz Corporation, and Chief Strategy Officer of AEG, added: “IGC’s vertical integration and multi-pronged approach to brand building affords us the ability to repeatedly check our performance and impact in the market in real-time; even with our long-term orientation, we will still prioritize an ability to sell underperforming or non-core individual assets in short order and focus on assets with strong underlying fundamentals and more upside.”
Esports Insider says: Although the Call of Duty League sale might have suggested otherwise, Immortals doesn’t seem to be slowing down. The organisation cites significant growth for its Gamers Club platform in Latin America and the firm may think it’s more valuable to balance out its professional esports and community-centric efforts and scale down on franchise obligations.