Black-owned eSports company PlayVS has announced that it’s acquired GameSeta, a Canadian startup company that also provides the much-needed infrastructure for high school eSports teams.
According to Crunchbase, the company — founded by serial entrepreneur Delane Parnell — will now have help in its so-called “growth phase,” especially into the Canadian market. What’s more, because PlayVS has a partnership with NFHS (the high school equivalent of NCAA) and GameSeta has a partnership with BC School Sports (which is British Columbia’s governing body for school sports), its all but domination in the Western Hemisphere is a foregone conclusion.
Parnell’s efforts, which began in 2018, resulted in the company’s original valuation being listed at $100 million.
That’s partly because prior to founding PlayVS, Parnell, himself, was a venture capitalist. His work at IncWell Venture Capital made him the youngest Black venture capitalist in the United States. Plus, his subsequent work at Rocket Fiber helped him raise $31 million and also helped him found Rush eSports, which was eventually acquired by Team SoloMid.
“We’re going to launch some direct consumer products directly in partnership with publishers to open up the PlayVS ecosystem so people can organize and join competitions, whether they are associated with high schools or otherwise,” Parnell said in a statement to Crunchbase. “We’re really excited about that. The markets in general have just shown a great appetite for gaming as a form of entertainment and content. Obviously, players are really excited about eSports as a form of content and a way to engage in competition and so we want to make sure that PlayVS is a place where people compete more broadly.”
