Hitmarker launches equity crowdfunding campaign

UK-based esports job platform Hitmarker has publicly launched its seed investment round with an equity crowdfunding campaign.

Hitmarker will use the capital raised to expand into the games industry, providing its services for that market in addition to esports.

RELATED: Esports job opportunities up 185% in first half of 2019

The company’s seed investment round has a minimum target of £80,000 in return for 4 percent of equity, with a maximum target sitting at £200,000 in exchange for 10 percent of equity. In its early access phase, Hitmarker raised over £32,000.

On the official page for the campaign is Hitmarker’s business plan and financial documents. The minimum amount that can be invested is £10.

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Richard Huggan, Managing Director of Hitmarker explained the decision behind the crowdfunding initiative: “Crowdfunding had always been in our minds because Phil, our Founder, has been an active user of Crowdcube himself for years now, notably investing in Monzo during their first raise. However, we engaged with a number of venture capital firms in February of this year, with a view to completing this seed round by May. At that point we’d only just begun generating revenue from our strategic partnership deal with the University of California, Irvine, but still felt we could get a good valuation of the company based on the excitement around the esports market and our relatively unique position within it.

“Our biggest barrier to hitting the target is going to be the geographical restrictions that are enforced on Crowdcube and that’s basically our biggest concern, that cutting everyday investors from Canada and the USA, in particular, out is going to prevent us from really raising what we’d like. However, we do plan on putting together a second raise aimed at these people – most likely on Indiegogo – although legally we still won’t be able to offer equity. We’ve got a few things up our sleeves there, though, and hope people will still just support us because they believe in the idea or have benefited from our service already.”

RELATED: HitmarkerJobs.com enters partnership with University of California, Irvine

Following a successful raise, Hitmarker will double its full-time workforce from five to 10, improve the features for companies hiring on its platform, and start catering to the video gaming market.

A separate follow-on raise will be conducted for people in Canada, Japan, and the USA at a later date.

Esports Insider says: Hitmarker provides an invaluable service to the industry and it’s daunting to even attempt to guess how many people it has helped already – imagine what it can do with solid investment! Ask yourself if you want a piece of that pie. If so, now’s your chance.

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