Esports companion app Strafe announced last week that it has raised $3 million in seed funding. The round was led by BITKRAFT Esports Ventures. The company plans to use this funding to scale its user base and expand its engineering team to accelerate product development.
Strafe is a one-stop-shop for esports updates, providing fans with a centralized hub featuring real-time updates from favorite teams and players. Users can also keep up with tournament coverage on the go, participate in social betting with fellow users and nerd out on esports statistics.
“We are extremely excited to welcome BITKRAFT Esports Ventures as an investor in Strafe,” said Einar Ahlström, CEO and Co-Founder of Strafe, in a statement. “BITKRAFT is the leading esports VC in the world and they bring much more than just capital to the table. They are deeply connected with all main entities within the esports community and will help propel our business as we execute on our game plan going forward.”
“Strafe is unlike any app currently on the esports market with extremely high user retention and organic growth and an impressive executive team including Marcus Jacobs, the former director of King’s popular mobile game Candy Crush, who is working to tap into the vast potential of social betting in esports.”
Strafe has put a massive trove of esports databases within reach for its users, providing live coverage of 58,000 matches, 12,000 professional players, 2,600 teams, eight different esports titles and users across 150 countries, according to the company. Its platform-specific ranking system allows players to engage in a social betting game in which users can vote on game outcomes, collect points, vie for dominance on the leaderboards and compete with other fans.
“Strafe is unlike any app currently on the esports market with extremely high user retention and organic growth and an impressive executive team including Marcus Jacobs, the former director of King’s popular mobile game Candy Crush, who is working to tap into the vast potential of social betting in esports,” added BITKRAFT Founding Partner, Malte Barth. “We are excited to back an incredible entrepreneurial team from the developing esports and gaming ecosystem in the Nordics that provides more structure to the esports competitive landscape and additional entertainment value to the esports community.”