PlayVS is an esports platform that allows high school students to take part in varsity esports teams through their school.
PlayVS has announced the close of a $50 million Series C led by their existing investor NEA. Other investors who participated in the funding are Battery ventures, Dick Costolo and Adam Bain of 01 advisors, Sapphire sports, Michael Zeisser, Deans Phelps of IVP and Co-founder CAA, Michael Ovitz among others.
The $50 million rounds up the startup’s total funding to $96 million, the major part of the financing were raised in the last 13 months.
PlayVS was launched in April of 2018 by Delane Parnell, who is the founder and CEO. Delane believes that the potentials in esports will not be maximized if high schools are left behind in the game.
The partnership between PlayVS and NFHS will allow schools across the country to organize esports teams and compete in leagues with the schools around them, just like any other varsity sports.
PlaysVS partners with game publishers and this makes it possible for the platform to pull statistics directly from their websites to track players’ progress continually.
The PlayVS software is also used by the high school management to build exports leagues for the students.
The all in one platform is integrated directly into partnered games, and it auto-reports wins and losses, scheduled matches as well as track players’ performance.
It’s been an incredible journey for PlayVS as almost 13000 schools have indicated their interest in using the platform to build their esports leagues.
How about funding? It’s important to know that PlayVs expects every parent or the school management to pay $64 for each student taking part in the semester league.
This new method of funding will go a long way towards accelerating its growth. The company is also eyeing the amateur esports space beyond high schools.
“Our business vision has evolved,” Parnell says. “Initially, we were all about: How do we build out the best infrastructure for high school esports? We’re now thinking about how to build a 100 million-plus user subscription service around esports.”
Last fall, the investing arm of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ leadership group led PlayVS’ $30.5 million Series B and was joined by Adidas, Samsung NEXT and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Article by: Theresa Mbanefo
