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Introduction: An Industry On The Rise

In October 2013, over 15,000 fans piled into The Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, but not for a Lakers game... Instead they were there for the League of Legends World Championship Finals. Tickets to the finals sold out within an hour. In the years since, the numbers for similar events have swelled even higher.

eSports, a term used to describe competitive video gameplay has been growing steadily for the past six years and today has over 250 million active players and spectators. Just like with any professional sport, eSports has teams, coaches, analysts, and most importantly for brands: sponsors. Some of the world’s biggest brands such as Coca-Cola, Bud Light, Red Bull, and Intel have partnered with game properties to push their products to the millions of passionate gamers and spectators.

As the sector grows, so too are startups launching to improve every part of the global eSports experience. From live streaming platforms to coaching and strategy apps, increasingly there is an eSports company for every facet of competitive gaming. In this list we look at 15 incredible eSports startups driving the space forward.

The 15 eSports Startups That Marketers Need to Know About:

Twitch

Categories: Streaming, Monetization

Founded in 2011, Twitch is the social video platform for gamers and easily the biggest name in the world of eSports. The streaming service boasts over 100 million monthly users and is the fourth-largest source of peak Internet traffic in the U.S. In recent years, the platform has expanded beyond eSports into other creative pursuits such as digital art. Additionally, they continue to develop and release new tools designed to allow streamers to engage with and monetize their audience.

Waypoint Media

Categories: Influencers

As influencer marketing becomes an ever more essential part of the digital marketing stack, Waypoint Media seamlessly turns content creators into media sellers within the world of eSports. Waypoint connects brands to the eSports audience through the Waypoint Marketplace, a proprietary platform reaching over 40 million monthly viewers across eSports' top content creators.

RankR

Categories: Community, Team Building

Regardless of platform, publisher, or genre, RankR provides resources for the games that players want. On their platform, gamers of all levels and abilities can build teams and communities and explore the calendar of events happening around the world.

Ader

Categories: Influencers

With over 1,000 influencers in their marketplace and 50 million unique watchers per month, Ader works with brands and streamers to promote content on Twitch. At Ader, brands have the opportunity to reach millions of gamers on Twitch and streamers get paid to promote branded content on their channels. One of Ader’s benefits? It allows brands to reach the game viewers and streamers on Twitch without having to worry about the growing usage of ad blockers.

Mobcrush

Categories: Streaming, Mobile

Mobcrush is betting that mobile gaming will soon surpass PC gaming. While Twitch dominates livestream PC gaming, Mobcrush brings mobile games live on their livestreaming platform dedicated strictly to mobile games. While Kamcord has evolved to include apps beyond games, Mobcrush is squarely focused on mobile gaming, differentiating by simpler tools for broadcast and connecting to other players.

Kamcord

Categories: Streaming, Mobile

Basically a Twitch for mobile games, Kamcord allows gamers to live stream their games straight from their phones. The newest feature lets users send virtual gifts to streamers in an attempt to grab their attention in the comments section during a live stream. Like Twitch, as the behavior of streaming has become more mainstream, Kamkord has moved from exclusively broadcasting mobile games to allowing users to broadcast a wide array of apps and experiences from their phones.

Instant Esports

Categories: Media

Think of Instant ESports as the ESPN of competitive eSports gaming. Just like ESPN and SportsCenter, Instant ESports gives gamers information about when events and tournaments are. The one-stop-shop site pulls information from various sources to provide information about where/when eSports matches or tournaments are happening, giving gamers the ability to filter and and customize their experience and stay up to date with the current events within the eSports community. The app is currently focused on League of Legends, the most streamed game today.

Major League Gaming

Categories: Tournaments, Gameplay

Way back in 2011 Major League Gaming was pulling in larger audiences than most television cable networks. Known to most gamers as one of the oldest and largest eSports companies in the world, MLG operates an online broadcast channel for professional level eSports, an online tournament system and a large professional North American eSports league. The company was acquired earlier this year by Activision.

Unikrn

Categories: Betting

Unikrn is bringing betting to eSports. The startup honors U.S. laws in an innovative way by allowing users to use free Unikoins to bet on matches, creating a safe and fun arena for people to gather, game, and legally bet on eSports. Real money betting is available in Australia and the UK. So far, Unikrn covers major titles like League of Legends, Dota 2, and CS:GO. Unikrn has also been a leader in promoting female gamers in the traditional male dominated space, last year forming an elite professional team of female Counter Strikers.

Dojo Madness

Categories: Betting

Dojo Madness turns your phone into a mobile eSports coach. The company’s goal is to help players master their game and solve problems in order to become their best. The app not only gives tips and tricks for before matches, but provides an in-depth analysis afterwards to further enhance future performance.

Overdog

Categories: Community, Gameplay

Overdog is a social matchmaking platform connecting like-minded gamers to create better online multiplayer experiences. The platform helps users interact and game with people who are like them and share similar interests. Once a user creates a profile with all of their personalized preferences they are suggested to play with other users who are like them, created a connected community of gamers.

Matcherino

Categories: Streaming, Monetization

Matcherino features a complete suite of tools for community organizers and streamers to better engage their audience and efficiently and transparently handle donations from the community. By using Twitch, Matcherino has access to the millions of monthly users who give and receive donations to and from their fans--giving them an easy to use tool to organize their income.

Mediaspike

Categories: Monetization

Mediaspike is bringing sponsored product placement into games. Founded in 2011, MediaSpike provides a native monetization platform for applications, with a focus on social and mobile games. Their service allows game developers to focus on making the games and lets Mediaspike focus on how to make the game more money through sponsorships. MediaSpike is also looking forwards virtual reality gaming, creating some of the first in-game billboards around the Minions film.

TwitchAlerts

Categories: Monetization, Community

TwitchAlerts is the perfect tool for streamers to keep track of donations from their viewers. With the plugin, streamers receive customizable notifications and alerts whenever a viewer makes a donation to their account, making it easy for streamers to show appreciation to their viewers and set donation goals.

Azubu

Categories: Streaming

Watch out Twitch and YouTube, there’s a new competitor in town. Rather than focusing on streaming in general, Azubu is a global entertainment network that hopes to focus solely on eSports to tap into the passionate communities within the multi-million dollar industry.

Brand Case Studies

Coca-Cola - League of Legends

Coca-Cola was one of the earliest big brand sponsors of eSports athletes, teams, and events, inspiring a frenzy of sponsorships across different industries. In 2014, Coke partnered with Riot Games, the creator of popular eSport game, League of Legends in an attempt to build a strong connection with the recently popularized realm of global gamers. Although most championship matches draw crowds of over 8,000 people, there are still millions of gamers across the world who want to watch the finals from afar without traveling. As part of the deal between Coke and Riot Games, Coke utilizes their partnership with Cinemark Cinemas to live stream League of Legends championship events in an attempt to make the large tournaments more accessible for all gamers regardless of their physical location. In 2015, Coke brought Worlds to cinemas in over 14 European countries. Since gamers are digital natives, both partners are looking to expand and build their social channels in order to engage with the users and promote upcoming events and programs. This partnership has allowed Coca-Cola to become a big name in the eSports community, leading them to create their own Global Gaming branch within the corporation. In the future we can expect to see more Coca-Cola sponsored events, teams, and even merchandise. The company expanded their eSports purview last year by sponsoring eSports weekly, a digital video content series produced by IGN.

Mountain Dew & Doritos Call of Duty

League of Legends may be the largest game brand in eSports players, but Call of Duty still commands the attention of more than 12 million monthly active players. Last year, PepsiCo brands Mountain Dew and Doritos teamed up with the Activision game for their “Fuel Up For Battle” campaign. In this campaign, customers could collect codes from certain specially branded Mountain Dew and Doritos products to redeem points to use an exclusive version of Call of Duty Black Ops III. Codes from the products could be used by gamers to redeem up to 30 minutes a day of the exclusive game. Since Mountain Dew and Doritos are already built into gamers’ DNA, this promotion rewards players for continuing to buy products they already love--building a great customer-brand relationship.

Nissan & League of Legends

We don’t typically associate gamers with sports cars, but soon we might. Back in 2013 Nissan made a strategic move into the world of eSports by sponsoring the popular League of Legends Team Curse. Nissan’s initial move into competitive gaming was sparked by the director of Interactive and Social Media Marketing, Erich Marx, who noticed that many people on his marketing team were interested in gaming and eSports. “ESports are very innovative, and that fits perfectly not only with Nissan products, but our marketing strategy.​”, said Marx. The Team Curse sponsorship has helped generate awareness of many of Nissan’s digital campaigns, proving that brands who may not be typically associated with gamers can still benefit from these types of sponsorships. Team Curse’s VP of Marketing, Donovan Duncan said that with the team’s social media reach of over 600,000, they’ll easily clear $20 million in revenue this year.

Red Bull & StarCraft

Whether you’re a pro gamer or extreme sport professional athlete, at Red Bull you’ll be treated exactly the same. Red Bull’s contracted players are given access to nutritionists, coaches, and top of the line labs. As one of the earliest adopters of eSports corporate sponsorships, Red Bull has invested a lot into the market of professional gaming. Not only do they have their own high tech eSports training laboratory to help their sponsored players improve their game, but they also host a plethora of eSports events across the United States and Europe. The sponsored events draw audiences in the thousands, giving Red Bull a great opportunity to push their products to the gamers in attendance and those watching live broadcasts.

Intel Extreme Masters

Since almost every eSports game is played on a PC, it’s no surprise that Intel got an early start in the competitive gaming industry. The Intel Extreme Masters global eSports tournament is the longest running global pro gaming tour in the world and attendance in recent years has grown over 10x. In order to leverage their marketing platform, Intel also sponsors numerous professional gaming tournaments across the world in efforts to promote their computer processors to some of the top gamers in the industry.