U.S. sports-focused venture capital funds Elysian Park Ventures and Cerro Capital headline a $12 million funding round for Gamurs, an Australia-based publisher of 16 esports and entertainment-focused titles.
Elysian Park, affiliated with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Cerro, which was formed in 2021 and disclosed an investment in Religion of Sports earlier this year, lead the Series A funding. They are joined by Powerhouse Capital, an L.A. VC firm that invested in The Athletic and sportsbook tech firm Boom; Australia’s Aura Ventures, which helped player data firm Catapult go public; and fellow Aussie firm Artesian, which has investments in tennis coaching start-up BestShot and esports performance-focused Emotai. The funding will allow Gamurs to pursue more acquisitions.
“In terms of the fundraising round, it made sense if we had additional capital available to us and a bit of dry powder and see what acquisitions are we able to conduct,” Gamurs CEO Riad Chikhani said in a phone call from Sydney. “We saw the writing on the wall in terms of the markets and economy … and therefore lower ad rates, which our business and a number of businesses we acquire generate their revenue from, it made sense to have a conversation about what additional capital would mean for the business.”
Gamurs was founded in 2015 by Chikhani, 27, and quickly expanded globally with the 2016 acquisition of a publisher in Austin, Texas. Gamurs’ esports publications—including Dot Esports and Pro Game Guides—have an average of 55 million monthly readers.
“A majority of our staff reside in the U.S., 80% of our revenue is derived out of the U.S., so it made sense to have investors with a deeper network and deeper understanding of the U.S.. market,” said Chikhani. “It was quite natural for Elysian Park, consistent with investing in esports, sports and general media, and then Cerro is trying to invest in all things sports and growth as well, so it made sense. The round came along quite nicely.”
Previous seed round investments came from Australian investors, including Alium Capital and Perle Ventures. Additionally, a series of individual investors backed the company through an accelerator run by Australia’s largest automobile association when Chikhani was a 19-year old university student.
Chikhani said Gamurs is growing quickly; its latest fiscal year, ending in June, saw sales growth of 180% and profitability gains exceeding that rate, thanks to the fast-rising popularity of esports. While he declined to cite specific dollar amounts, a late September purchase of esports titles by Gamurs provides some context. Gamus paid Toronto’s EnthusiastGaming C$6.8 million (about $5 million) for six titles including Operation Sports and Destructoid. Revenue from the group acquired was about $1.1 million, according to a disclosure by the seller, which is publicly traded on the Nasdaq.
“The [esports] industry, in terms of revenue, has grown past $1 billion and that’s really exciting, but it’s still quite small in the full view of what the gaming market is,” Chikhan said. “The number of esports viewers is quite significant—550 to 600 million—and ramping up hugely. We fully believe the esports market will have north of a billion viewers in the next five, 10 years.”
The investment of mainstream sports league owners into esports franchises is a signal the sector is primed to continue growing, the executive added. “It’s an incredible validation of what the market is going to be in the next 20, 30, 40 years,” Chikhani said. “Having the world’s largest English publication is an investment in the long-term.”
