Juked raises $800,000 in pre-seed funding round

San Francisco-based esports startup Juked has raised $800,000 (£616,960) in a pre-seed funding round.

The funds raised will be used to “accelerate development of its one-stop-destination” goals.

RELATED: Esports startup Juked launches open beta

The investment will help Juked expand its product offering to include features such as scores, statistics, news aggregation, team portals, and monetisation initiatives. The funding round was led by 500 Startups, an accelerator based in San Francisco.

Other investors include Mike Morhaime, Co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, Amy Morhaime, former Vice President of Blizzard Esports, MyFitnessPal co-founders Mike Lee and Albert Lee, RotoGrinders.com co-founders Cameron MacMillan and Cal Spears, among others.

RELATED: Esports investments, mergers, and acquisitions in January 2020

Founded by Ben Goldhaber and Chris Chan, Juked launched its open beta late last year. The platform aggregates streams from a number of esports titles and has a calendar that provides a consolidated look at what’s to come in terms of events.

When the beta was launched, Goldhaber said: “Esports has grown exponentially over the last decade, but there is still too much friction between becoming a fan of a game, player, or team, and being able to actually follow that esport, We built Juked as a single comprehensive destination with the goal of lowering the barrier to entry to enjoying esports. Our vision is to help every single esports community grow, since it will be a win-win for fans, developers, publishers, and the players who are invested in seeing their scene succeed.”

Esports Insider says: A lot of people, both fans and industry figures, are showing support and thanking Juked.gg for its services. With that in mind, this funding will help it turn things up a notch and continue to make waves in the industry.

Subscribe to ESI on YouTube