Venture Funds Aim at Esports

(photo courtesy of ggCircuit)

Bloomington-based Beastcoast has closed a $2.5 million pre-seed round of funding to help the company continue to grow its esports and gaming content network.

A variety of investors, including Elevate Ventures, Techstars, Andover Ventures and Flywheel Fund, took part in the round.

Launched last summer, Flywheel Fund is a capital fund run by The Mill, a Bloomington-based coworking and entrepreneurship center. Flywheel invested $50,000 in beastcoast.

“Flywheel Fund is so fortunate to have the opportunity to invest in Beastcoast. E-sports viewership is growing by double-digits annually, and Beastcoast is the fastest-growing pro-gaming content creator online,” said Pat East, executive director of The Mill. “It’s just a really cool company with tremendous potential that’s already being realized.”

Flywheel says Beastcoast has 1.5 million subscribers. It was co-founded by Brian Anderson, a graduate of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.  He saw an opportunity to monetize the content in esports.

“Flywheel has already opened their incredible network of midwestern investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders to Beastcoast and is helping us continue to grow the leading gaming and esports content network online,” said Anderson. “Finding amazing midwestern partners is especially important to me. At Beastcoast, we love Flywheel’s support of Indiana entrepreneurs and are so proud to be the first investment in their second fund.”