Hiro Capital launches with €100m fund as it sets sights on gaming boom
A team of gaming entrepreneurs has set up a brand new venture capital firm to pump €100m (£87.6m) into the booming games and esports industries.
Hiro Capital launched today with the aim of targeting what it describes as a funding gap in the market, splitting its investments between creative games studios and industry technology.
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The new firm boasts an entrepreneurial founding team consisting of Games Workshop co-founder Ian Livingstone, Inspired Entertainment co-founder Luke Alvarez and Lovecrafts founder Cherry Freeman.
“The scaling opportunities combined with the capital efficiency in the games and sports technology sectors make it a uniquely exciting arena,” said Freeman.
“There are very few sectors which are totally global, totally consumer facing and instantly scalable and our new fund will be looking to tap into this potential to discover the next-generation of trailblazers.”
Hiro, which is based in London and Luxembourg, said it plans to use its fund to back roughly 20 gaming-related startups in the UK and Europe.
The venture capital firm said it will generally invest in the post-seed stage as it looks to capitalise on a “significant” gap in local growth capital for the industry.
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“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,” Livingstone added.
The gaming market has expanded rapidly in recent years, fuelled by the growing popularity of esports, and is expected to be worth around $200bn (£159bn) by 2022.
Main image credit: Getty