UPDATE 8/11/22: Vivo Keyd Stars’ President Pedro Schmidt has since detailed more information regarding the merger to Esports Insider.
Brazilian esports organisations Vivo Keyd and Stars Horizon have merged under a combined management structure.
The new organisation will be called ‘Vivo Keyd Stars’, a clear reference to the organisations’ prior names.
According to Forbes, the newly formed organisation has a valuation of R$100m (~£16.94m). The new management board is formed by President Pedro Schmidt (Stars Horizon), Vice-President Edu Kim (Vivo Keyd), CEO Hugo Tristão (Newzoo) and CMO Henrique Marques.
Esports Insider spoke with Shmidt regarding the negotiations that led to the merger: “I and Edu Kim got closer and quickly saw that we had a lot of synergies to work together. Since then, we’ve started talking about how to join forces and do even more for esports as a whole. Our line of thinking has always been very similar from the first conversation and, after a few months, we started to negotiate and understand the best way to bring together the best we had at that moment.
“Our goal is to build a story and show that esports is much more than just a game. We are here to impact lives. This is the legacy we want to create.”
Former Vivo Keyd CEO Tiago Xisto, who was replaced by former Newzoo Esports Market Lead Tristão, will remain with the organisation as an advisor. Vivo Keyd Stars is also reinforcing its staff with personnel coming from companies including Garena, communication conglomerate Globo and fitness content platform FitDance.
“In order to deliver everything we intend for the community, we have already reinforced our internal team with the arrival of more than 20 professionals, who are people already inserted in the gaming universe and outside it, and who have the objective of bringing new business visions,” said Tristão in the organisation’s press release.
The acquisition reinforces rumours that Vivo Keyd Stars is the organisation buying Miners’ spot at the Brazilian League of Legends Championship (CBLOL) franchise. In August, Esports Insider confirmed that Miners had advanced negotiations for the spot. The name ‘Keyd Stars’ is also a throwback to the season when the organisation won its sole title of the CBLOL in 2014.
Esports Insider asked Schmidt about the possibility, and the organisation’s President confirmed that buying a spot in the CBLOL franchise is indeed an objective for Vivo Keyd Stars.
After being left out of the CBLOL franchise in 2020, Vivo Keyd went through a restructuring that ultimately led to titles in other games like VALORANT and Free Fire. The Vivo Keyd Stars tag debut will be in the Free Fire World Series (FFWS) in Bangkok, Thailand, on November 25th.
This is not the only major merger seen in Brazilian esports this year. In September, Los Grandes bought and merged Team oNe into its structure.
