CoinFund Leads $2.3M Investment in Esports Startup Trying to Bring Crypto to Gamers

Community Gaming wants to bring esports to a blockchain near you.

The platform, which allows users to organize video game tournaments on either the Ethereum mainnet, Binance Smart Chain or Polygon, has raised $2.3 million in a seed funding round led by CoinFund.

Prominent backers such as Dapper Labs, Multicoin Capital, Rally founder Kevin Chou, Signum Growth Capital, Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman's Thirty Five Ventures and non-fungible token (NFT) collector WhaleShark also invested.

The capital injection follows an earlier pre-seed investment by ConsenSys and will be used to hire additional staff and grow the platform’s presence across Latin America and Southeast Asia, according to Community Gaming CEO Chris Gonsalves.

Community Gaming’s blockchain-based platform enables rewards to be paid out instantaneously in the ERC-20 token of the organizer’s choice, and sent directly to users’ crypto wallets.

Is the latest example of the worlds of blockchain and video games colliding. NFTs have emerged as a popular way to buy digital collectibles; investors are betting on games as the next venue for crypto’s mainstream embrace.

Gaming gateway

Much like Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot, Community Gaming’s platform is designed to be user-friendly even for people with no prior crypto experience. Registering an account with the platform generates a wallet, and fiat-to-crypto onboarding makes Community Gaming beginner-friendly.

“I think this is a mainstream avenue for getting more broad consumer adoption of crypto,” CoinFund investor Evan Feng said of the platform, adding:

“There are so many similarities between the crypto and the gaming communities. An open-mindedness, a little bit more risk or adventure seeking, and generally an openness to the idea of self-sovereignty.”

According to Gonsalves, the platform’s number of active users is growing quickly, doubling to 20,000 in June alone.

Gonsalves also said the platform, which until now has been making the majority of its revenue through sponsorships with companies like Facebook Gaming, MakerDAO and Theta.tv, plans to begin charging a 5% commission on all tournaments.