Ignite Tournaments Raises $10M for Mobile Play-to-Earn Esports Platform

Play-to-earn esports tournament organizer Ignite Tournaments has announced that it has raised a $10 million from the investors, which will be used to improve the company’s infrastructure and operations.

Ignite Tournaments said it will “build the world’s first mobile play-to-win esports tournament and streaming platform.” The investment consists of a $3 million initial round completed in December 2021 and a $7 million strategic round closed in February 2022.

Ignite Tournaments is a company specializing in building platforms for play-to-win competitive games. The company claims it can turn “any mobile game into a play-to-win game,” and plans to create tournaments that take advantage of it in the future. Payments for tournaments are planned to be made in cryptocurrencies or NFTs.

The February investment round was co-led by Animoca Brands, an investor in the esports/blockchain space along with Infinity Ventures Crypto and Moon Holdings Fund.

“We are bullish on Ignite Tournaments. When I led multiple strategic efforts at Riot Games, I always thought that a ‘plug-and-play’ tournament would benefit players. It was inevitable that someone would build such a platform. I am delighted to see what Krystal and Tony have built, and look forward to supporting them in play-to-earn and traditional gaming.”

Thomas Vu, Partner at Moon Holdings Fund

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Ignite Tournaments has also recently partnered with Crypto Gaming United, a gaming guild focused on the metaverse. As part of this partnership, the two companies announced that they will be working together to create “player-owned tournaments” across the metaverse.

“Animoca Brands has built its success by investing in and partnering with projects with strong fundamentals both in and out of the gaming industry. It is under this exciting context that we are eager to both invest in as well as to explore integrating our games with Ignite Tournaments.”

Robby Yung, CEO of North American Operations for Animoca Brands

Play-to-earn esports is a very new concept but is slowly becoming more mainstream. Still, this could potentially be huge for the mobile esports ecosystem if Ignite Tournaments can sustain its big claim to make play-to-win games out of any mobile game.