Edge Esports secures 1.14 Seed Follow On investment led by Blake Picquet

EDGE RAISES $1.5M

The investment will expand operations around Edge’s end-to end solution that connects data and insights to smart contracts and payments, automating processes to ensure efficiency and transparency for publishers, team owners, tournament organisers, influencers and more

London, United Kingdom, 6th November 2020: Edge, the end-to-end solution that connects and automates data, contract and payments, is pleased to announce investment of $1.5m. Created for the esports and video games industry, Edge aims to tackle some of the most pressing challenges felt across the sector helping publishers and tournament organisers to influencer marketing agencies and influencers themselves by eliminating ambiguity around contracts and obligations, making processes easier, streamlined and more transparent. 

The investment will allow Edge to invest in the wider team infrastructure from marketing to business development and onboard a host of new technical talent to help build, scale and improve the platform and release new features including Edge Sandbox a new innovative way to quickly and easily build smart contracts that will help to incentivise players based on their data. In addition, Edge will add to their array of social platform and game implementations, providing even more statistical analysis systems to offer clients data analysis and insights in an intuitive fashion like Tableau or Gardiner. What differentiates Edge is that this data can then be used to power financial transactions like payments to influencers or gamers. 

Edge’s investment was led by Blake Picquet, Manager of his family office partnerships who have invested in a number of early stage tech and media sports start-ups in the USA along with a key holding in the Texas Rangers baseball team, two early-stage venture capital funds, Green Egg Ventures and Game Tech Ventures, and Robert Reeg, Former President of Mastercard Global Technologies for 22 years. Each of Edge’s round participants bring both capital and strategic value to the Edge team with their networks in gaming, sports, media, tech, and payments.

Edge was founded in 2018 by former sports lawyer Adam Whyte, industry veteran David Yarnton who has over 30 years experience across the video games and esports industry having held senior positions at Nintendo before joining Gfinity as a Founding Director, and Scott Hiett, a 17 years old self taught engineer, fluent in most programming languages and hailed by Forbes as “the next generation of computer science”. 

Edge’s executive team has deep knowledge of legal, gaming, social and tech. Their complementary skills, networks and vision has led to the development of a revolutionary smart contracting platform that automates crucial business processes like payments and data with up to 90% cost and time saving efficiency.

Starting with data, Edge connects social media and gaming accounts, tracking data and gathering in-depth insights. Users can then connect data to Edge’s smart contracts linking contractual obligations to a player or influencers projected reach and content results and even payment processing. By leveraging all of Edge’s services users can automate lengthy contract negotiations when signing players, influencers or facilitating sponsorship and avoid disputes putting an end to processes that take months, meaning no chasing for missing payments, no manual checks required, no missing paperwork and no human error. The platform safeguards all sides, publishers, agencies, influencers and more.

“When we started Edge we were very focused on the value of smart contracts for both businesses and the individual. The esports and video games industry is young and fast paced and unfortunately certain processes and regulations often fall by the wayside. Our ambition initially was to create something that would make the industry safer and over time we’ve found our Edge technology has multiple purposes,” said Adam Whyte, Co-Founder and CEO of Edge. 

“We see huge value in connecting data, contracts and payments. If you’re running an influencer campaign and the required content isn’t posted, the contract isn’t fulfilled and payment won’t be made. We can monitor in-game and social performance and only pay when content is delivered. It’s as simple as that.”

Blake Picquet said:

“We invested in Edge because we believe in their vision. Using data to power and automate business makes sense in a global economy that is increasingly measured in reach, clicks, likes and engagements. We love the intersection of sports, tech, and media investments. Edge is enabling the growth of the influencer, streaming and gaming industries by providing a purpose built solution. Edge uses new world solutions for new world industries. Their executive team couldn’t be better assembled to tackle this complicated problem with a simple solution. We are excited to give Edge lift-off internationally and look forward to supporting their growth in the US initially.”

Robert Reeg, Former President of Mastercard Global Technologies a strategic investor with Edge said:

“Having been involved in the payments industry for years and continually looking at innovation for Mastercard across the world, we found that people hated waiting for their money especially Gen Z. The Edge platform is solving the multi-billion dollar problem that every business faces – inefficient payments and data reporting. I was so impressed with the technology that Edge has developed and the team behind it I felt that the future innovation that they offer in automated, secure payments are the future of financial tech, it is a company I had to be involved in.”

About Edge

Edge is a cutting edge end-to-end solution for data, contracts and payments created for the video games and esports industry. Edge’s proprietary tech platform was designed to make the tough and time-consuming parts of running a business easier, connecting data and insights to smart contracts and payments that everyone can rely on. 

Founded in 2018 by former sports lawyer Adam Whyte, industry veteran David Yarnton, and computer science prodigy Scott Hiett, Edge has grown rapidly to support publishers, brands, players, team managers, influencers and more. With products that increase speed, transparency and security in common esports and video game back office activity, Based in London and operating globally, Edge is backed by key industry partners and the founding team has experience in gaming, esports, legal and tech.

Safiya Marzook

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