Hiro Capital has launched a €100 million fund, to back the future UK and EU leaders in the global esports, games and digital sports sectors.
It aims to accelerate the growth of about 20 games and sports innovators in the UK and Europe.
Hiro Capital will generally invest at the post-seed stage, at Series A and B. The fund will back entrepreneurs and creative studios in the sectors mentioned and in cloud, mobile, streaming, big data, AI, wearables, AR and VR technologies.
As well as financial investment, Hiro Capital says it works with its entrepreneurs to help them scale, from assisting in early-stage planning and product development, to strategy, global expansion and exit timing.
Those on the Hiro team include Luke Alvarez (Managing Partner) who was co-founder CEO & President of Inspired Entertainment, a Nasdaq-listed mobile games and virtual sports technology company.
Ian Livingstone (Partner) is the former chairman of Eidos plc, the publisher of Tomb Raider and co-founder of Games Workshop – he is a true games industry legend.
The team also includes ‘Britain’s Coolest Female Founder’ as awarded by Business Insider in 2017, Cherry Freeman (partner), the co-founder of global community and e-commerce brand LoveCrafts.
There’s also Simon Cornwell, Thomas Martens, Alistair Hopkins, Spike Laurie (formerly ESL UK co-MD) and more.
“Having played a major part in building two billion-dollar games companies in my career and having angel invested in many mobile games superstars, I have witnessed first-hand the frustration of battling the post-seed capital gap,” said Ian Livingstone, partner.
“Through investing and nurturing the right talent in Europe and the UK, our goal is to generate great returns for our investors and bring much-needed capital to the industry.
“We are focused on innovative games and gaming technologies. We’re gamers at heart and strongly believe in the positive power of play culturally, socially and economically.”
Hiro Capital is advised by CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang in London and Luxembourg.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
