Spout Entertainment Group, a media company based in Singapore has raised a S$2.93 million (about US$2.1 million) seed investment from Reapra Investment Holdings.
The media company owns and operates Spout360.com, an eSports content platform which provides multimedia content about games, teams, competitions, as well as reportings about community-run events. The platform aims to become the largest eSports network in Southeast Asia, covering MMOGs like Overwatch, Hearthstone, and League of Legends.
It also runs Spout Agency and Cites. Where the former is an eSports influencer agency which helps pro teams, athletes, and shoutcasters to acquire and manage brand sponsorships, while the latter is an online education company with proprietary video-streaming technology in emerging economies like Myanmar and the Philippines.
Currently leading the company is Chief Executive Officer Daryl Teo, who is also a member of Reapra’s 5-Seat Investment Committee since November 2016. The company under his leadership is looking to make eSports in Southeast Asia a sustainable ecosystem by solving the industry’s pain points, in addition to pursuing profitability.
“Spout provides crucial solutions for the eSports industry and we have had interest from more mature conglomerates in the gaming and media space,” explains Teo. “We assure all our followers, affectionately referred to by our community as Spouters, that we will continue to appraise incoming offers and all avenues with the best interests of all Spouters and the regional Southeast Asia gaming community at heart.”
The company follows the exemplars of South Korea, Europe, and the United States, expressing the intention to build a future where aspiring professional gamers, game shoutcasters and everyone who is passionate about gaming a chance to pursue it as a career in Southeast Asia.
All pre-recorded videos and live streaming will be rendered via Spout’s Content Management Platform which translates, transcribes and smart-renders video files, in real time.
Looking at Spout’s proprietary video-processing capabilities, it also has the potential for expanding into adjacent content industries to serve the millennial customer segment. The company is currently in talks with regional content creators to distribute Spout’s video-processing capabilities.
“Investors can expect ownership of an asset which represents the future of millennials, with a proven, exponentially-growing and highly lucrative business model exemplified by traditional sports like soccer and basketball,” Teo said.
Part of the proceeds from this investment will be focused on funding expansion in Myanmar, while Spout will also commit an initial S$600K (about US$429K) to provide free education resources to the local community.
“To do that, we have identified key areas in the current ecosystem which require more infrastructure and support. Spout will fill these gaps either by partnering with global heavyweights such as ESL from Germany and Abios from Sweden, or we will invest heavily and build it up from scratch,” Teo said.
By Vivian Foo, VCNewsNetwork
