North American esports organisation XSET has secured $15m (~£12.5m) from its Series A funding round.
According to the release, the capital will be used to invest in new executive talent, as well as in marketing and content creation.
The funding was led by streetwear and lifestyle holding company LightWork Worldwide. Many investors in this round were also companies which focus on blockchain, web3 projects, the metaverse and NFTs such as Alpha Sigma Capital, Concept Art House and GuildFi.
Six NFL athletes including Ezekiel Elliot – who invested in eFuse in the past – and Kyle Van Noy – who has been with XSET since August 2020 – also invested in the funding round.
XSET has also opened a west coast office in Compton, California within LightWorks Worldwide’s 45,000-square-foot space. The office will host XSET’s cooperate operations, esports training facilities and content creation studio. Additionally, the new facility will be open for public events to make gaming more accessible.
The organisation currently has competitive rosters across an array of esports titles, including VALORANT, Rocket League, Halo and Rainbow Six Siege, among others.
Prior to the funding, XSET announced the acqui-hire of talent agency Astoic Management. Moreover, the organisation partnered with the likes of hip-hop nightclub Drai’s and gaming matchmaking platform Partie.
Greg Selkoe, CEO of XSET, commented: “XSET’s approach from the beginning has been to build a revenue and profit-focused brand while still leaning into our values of diversity and inclusion. We are leveraging our amazing team’s unrivalled experience in building content, fashion, music, gaming and lifestyle allowing XSET to scale but for a fraction of the spend as our competitors.
“XSET is going to be the dominant brand in gaming lifestyle, and we believe we can grow something massive without burning huge amounts of capital or compromising our values.” We do this by being authentic and showing up every day to innovate and providing value across everything our fans love from gaming to streetwear. We will always put the XSET fans first.”
