ESforce Holding Ltd.
 | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
|---|---|
| Industry | Cybersport |
| Founded 📆 | |
| Founder 👔 | Anton Cherepennikov, Alexander Kokhanovskyy (has stepped down as co-owner in January, 2018) |
Area served 🗺️ | |
Key people | Alisher Usmanov |
| Members | |
Number of employees | |
| Subsidiaries | Virtus.pro, SK Gaming, Yota Arena, Cybersport.ru, Cybersport.com, Fragstore, RuHub, Epic Esports Events, Vispa media |
| 🌐 Website | esforce |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
ESforce Holding Ltd. is an eSports organization, operating mainly in Eastern Europe.[1][2].
ESforce is a holding company, whose subsidiaries organize international tournaments, operate web sites, and sell of esports-themed merchandise[3]. ESforce owns over 220 popular online resources with a combined audience of 12 million followers and 114 million annual unique visitors, which provide a 90-percent reach to esports broadcast viewers in Russia and the CIS[4][5]. The holding’s structure comprises the following assets: the esports organizations Virtus.pro and SK Gaming; RuHub, an analysis and video production studio; the portals Cybersport.ru and Cybersport.com; the Epic Esports Events company, the esports venue Yota Arena, and Fragstore, an esports merchandise retail chain [6][7].
History and development[edit]
The first electronic sports world championship, World Cyber Games, was held in Seoul in 2000. Teams from 200 countries took part in the qualifiers. The tournament had a prize pool of $200,000. The fact that one could earn money playing videogames motivated many people around the world to take serious notice of esports. A Russian team, M19[8], won the WCG in 2002[9], causing a wave of interest in professional gaming in Russia.
In 2010, Alexei Kolesnikov (Lex), the captain of Russia’s oldest esports team, Virtus.pro, met the entrepreneur and former professional player Anton Cherepennikov. The team had lost its sponsors in the wake of the 2009 crisis. Their conversation prompted Cherepennikov to personally finance a revival of Virtus.pro. Following the team’s revival, Anton Cherepennikov decided to merge his company with the assets of Alexandr Kokhanovsky, the founder of the Ukrainian team Natus Vincere (Na`Vi). The two became owners of several teams, an esports event broadcast studio, and a tournament organizer company[10].
Following their 2015 deal, Cherepennikov and Kokhanovsky founded a holding company, named ESforce. At the launch of the company, the partners announced a number of ambitious projects, such as constructing an esports tournament venue in Moscow. The project attracted the interest of billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s USM Holdings, resulting in a joint investment with UTV Russia Holding to the total amount of $100 million[11][12]. Afterwards, ESforce purchased Natus Vincere’s media and advertisement sales rights, as well as a 66-percent stake in the esports organization SK Gaming[13]. In 2016, ESforce held the first international esports tournament in Russia, Epicenter, with a prize pool of 500,000 US dollars[14]. Since then, Epic Esports Event, a part of ESforce, has been holding Epicenter tournaments twice a year, in the key esports disciplines of Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Late in 2016, ESforce was joined by two service portals for in-game item trading, CS:GO Lounge and Dota 2 Lounge[15].
A further asset of the holding was created in 2017: Yota Arena, Russia’s first esports arena with a total area of 5,000 sq.m. Yota Arena cost 10 million dollars to construct[16][17]. At the end of 2017, the rights to Na’Vi reverted to Alexandr Kokhanovsky’s Zero Gravity Group upon mutual agreement. Kokhanovsky later joined ESforce Holding’s board of directors[18][19]
In January 2018, Mail.ru Group bought a 100-percent stake in ESforce Holding for 100 million dollars[20][21]. Under the terms of the deal, ESforce remained an autonomous holding within Mail.ru Group’s structure.
References[edit]
- ↑ Компания Усманова построит один из крупнейших в мире киберстадионов, РБК
- ↑ ESforce Holding, Crunchbase
- ↑ Mail.Ru Group приобретет киберспортивную организацию ESforce, РИА Новости (20180122T1135+0300Z)
- ↑ EPICENTER XL по Dota 2 состоится в Москве!, epicenter.gg
- ↑ Mail.Ru Group acquires Russian eSports leader ESforce for $100M , Gamasutra
- ↑ Mail.Ru поглотила киберспортивный холдинг ESforce более чем за $100 млн, CNews.ru
- ↑ Sources: SK, VP parent company ESForce acquired for $150 million, ESPN
- ↑ Организация M19 вернулась в киберспорт после 11-летнего перерыва, Спорт Экспресс
- ↑ World Cyber Games 2002, Liquipedia
- ↑ ESforce: Антон Черепенников строит киберспортивный холдинг, Секрет фирмы
- ↑ Алишер Усманов инвестирует в киберспорт, Коммерсантъ. — 2015-10-15.
- ↑ Billionaire Usmanov to Invest $100m in Russian E-Sports Firm, Bloomberg
- ↑ SK Gaming's new owner is the company that owns the majority of CSGO Lounge and Virtus Pro, dotesports.com
- ↑ Dota 2 tournament Epicenter provides a preview of this year's multimillion dollar competitions, Polygon
- ↑ Virtus Pro's parent company owns majority of CSGO Lounge, Dot Esports
- ↑ Киберспорт для элиты: Yota-арена в Москве оказалась слишком шикарной, Канобу.
- ↑ Investments in Yota Arena Esports Complex Exceed $10 Million.
- ↑ Na’Vi and ESforce Holding end partnership, but does it mean anything?, Esports Insider
- ↑ Холдинг ESforce и Natus Vincere завершили сотрудничество, Чемпионат
- ↑ Deep Dive into Mail.Ru’s Acquisition of ESforce, Usmanov Remains in Control, The Esports Observer
- ↑ Mail.ru Group объявила о покупке 100% киберспортивного холдинга ESForce, Информационное агентство Рамблер
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