Misfits Gaming Group announced on Nov. 3 it launched a $20 million investment fund for streamers and other innovators in the creator economy to finance ambitious projects and ventures that will bring their careers to the next level.
The esports and entertainment company, which was founded in 2016, announced it financed the fund by relinquishing its team selected as one of ten franchised teams to participate in the League of Legends European Championship in 2019.
“Misfits is undergoing a major inflection point in its history,” founder Ben Spoont told Passionfruit. “We feel like Misfits is exceptionally well-positioned to invest in creators to accelerate their growth and output with a long-term ambition to join in on their success.”
“The focus is really on pushing the space or content creators forward in a more selfless way where we don’t necessarily have to brand our mark on every single thing that they do,” he added. “However, we are going to expect that our holistic efforts will be noticed, and we’re going to build brand equity with them in the long term.”
Every investment with a creator, Spoont said, will be “bespoke.” Although Misfits will own a certain percentage of whatever project it invests in, that percentage will vary based on the project at hand, with Spoont insisting that any percentage of ownership will be “nothing that would be out of the ordinary for what I would classify as venture investing.”
The company already started investing in creators, starting with QTCinderella, otherwise known as Blaire, who announced on Nov. 1 her decision to leave the well-known esports organization Team SoloMid (TSM FTX). After organizing the inaugural Streamer Awards, which took place in March 2022, she founded her own events management company which, through an investment from Misfits, she hopes to grow and expand across 2023 and beyond.
“The thing about having Misfits help with my funding is it’s immediately going to be able to skyrocket what I can do,” Blaire told Passionfruit. “My head is so full of ideas, like, it’s kind of disgusting—if I had just another me I would probably have an event every weekend.”
However, she said one of her “biggest setbacks” was finding the money to hire the team, venue, and resources needed to turn her ideas into a reality: “A lot of my ideas have been halted because of money, or waiting for a sponsor because even though I am in the top 1% of streamers, there’s a dramatic difference between the top 1% and 0.1%.”
She added: “I don’t want money to be the reason my dream creation doesn’t come true—and through Misfits, I’ll be able to do almost anything.”
Blaire isn’t the only creator benefiting from Misfits’ investment. It also recently invested in American chess Grandmaster and streamer Hikaru Nakamura, who will be using the funds to develop his own chess-themed talk show. Misfits is also investing in “TubNet,” a Minecraft server led by well-known streamer Tubbo.
The organization is accepting applications from creators now, and when it comes to applying for a grant, Spoont said: “For Misfits, we want to be the accelerant. You need a creator like Blaire, who is herself extremely ambitious, extremely focused on her craft, and her and her passion really shows [in] everything that she does, and she also honestly is celebrating her community. And she does that by putting on [really entertaining events].”
Blaire added: “There’s tons of things that people can do differently, and they just get afraid to think outside the box because it’s scary at first. Once you change from your original content, you don’t know if your community is going to follow. You don’t know if the internet is going to like it. But it’s worth trying. And so, I think just having content creators that are interested in taking that risk is the biggest thing in and of itself.”
