Over the past week there’s been a couple of pieces of news from UK esports and gaming companies on the London Stock Exchange: Gfinity and Guild Esports.
Gfinity sells esports solutions division due to ‘limited profitable growth opportunities’
UK-based gaming business Gfinity has all but exited esports after selling its esports solutions division to Ingenuity Loop Limited.
As previously announced in February 2023, Fulham’s Gfinity Arena was closed, ‘given the inconsistent nature of service delivery work, the high cost of delivering an end-to-end esports solution and the resources required to support clients in their activations ‘around the globe’, and Gfinity had decided to partner with a US business instead.
Then, in June, Gfinity announced it had closed down its esports solutions division and all employees bar one were made redundant. The company said this was because ‘the market for esports remained soft’, and directors decided to focus solely on its media division and content websites instead.
Today, Gfinity is a very different business to the days of its Gfinity Elite Series.
Gfinity had previously run the esports product for the F1 Esports Series and more.
Ingenuity Loop Limited is a newly formed company owned by media investor Mike Luckwell, which has agreed to buy the remaining business and assets of Gfinity’s esports solutions division for £15,000 in cash and a 15% equity interest.
The buyer has an option to buy Gfinity’s 15% interest in Ingenuity for £200,000 in cash at any time in the first 12 months following completion of the sale. Neville Upton, Non-executive Chairman of the Company, has agreed to join Ingenuity Loop as Chief Executive and will not receive a salary until Ingenuity Loop is profitable. In return, Neville will have an equity interest of approximately 41.65% in Ingenuity Loop on completion.
Ingenuity Loop will have the license for up to four years to trade as ‘Gfinity Esports Solutions’, provided it’s not permitted to make any public announcements using the Gfinity trading name.
The sale also comes after Gfinity sold its remaining 27.5% interest in Athlos Game Technologies Limited, its former esports technology business, to Tourbillon Group UK Limited.
Guild Studios passes $1m revenue milestone
UK-based esports organisation Guild Esports PLC has announced that Guild Studios, the company’s production and creative division, has generated over $1.1m in revenue since its creation in Q1 2023.
Since its creation, Guild Studios has delivered campaigns and activations for brands including Samsung UK, Coca-Cola, Sky Broadband, Subway and blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan. Guild Studios has also organised activations and events including assisting in the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S23, launching the first mixed-gender Valorant tournament and launching an all-female Rocket League tournament.
The $1.1 million revenue milestone was achieved after Guild Studios was named the Official Activation Partner of Sky Broadband for its 2024 Gaming Plan. Sky Broadband has granted Guild Studios an exclusive mandate to deliver activation services in the first half of 2024. These include production and design work, creative work and project management.
Guild Studios’ new mandate from Sky Broadband will build on Sky’s position as Official Premier Partner of Guild Esports. Guild Studios will take a tournament-led strategy to content creation, delivering esports and gaming events, with the purpose of elevating the visibility and recognition of women gamers.
“Guild Studios is a success story for Guild Esports. Since its creation this year it has already brought in close to a million pounds in revenue and provides us with an opportunity to drive revenue alongside sponsorship.”
Jasmine Skee, Guild Esports
All content distributed on Guild’s social media channels is created in-house by Guild Studios. Guild says its number of followers across its owned and operated channels has increased by 1.7m in H2 2023.
Jasmine Skee, CEO of Guild Esports, commented: “Guild Studios is a success story for Guild Esports. Since its creation this year it has already brought in close to a million pounds in revenue and provides us with an opportunity to drive revenue alongside sponsorship.
“Guild Studios is hugely exciting for us as a brand – we partner with companies on targeted campaigns that clearly demonstrate Guild’s ability to connect and understand the notoriously hard-to-reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha demographics. Guild Studios has produced some incredible work so far, and this is a promising growth area.
“Since first signing Sky as our Official Premier Partner in September 2022, our relationship has continued to flourish. Brought together by our shared commitment to women in gaming and esports excellence, we’re delighted to be working more closely with Sky in 2024 and beyond.”
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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.
