I'm dumping a word doc of info that I gathered from lurking...

I'm dumping a word doc of info that I gathered from lurking through HC, Techcrunch and so on.

Would appreciate people's thoughts on the points I've raised. Happy to be corrected on any statements that are incorrect.

Thanks.



What’s Mogul Arena?

Mogul Arena is a system for hosting/organising and participating in competitive gaming. The platform allows people to socialise, create teams and participate in tournaments for prizes and bragging rights.

What’s so good about that?

Right now, that I know of, there isn’t an easy way to organise tournaments and large-scale organised competitive gaming without doing all the work yourself. Mogul Arena operates in a way that is very similar to online poker systems like Pokerstars, 888 Poker and so on. You just put your name down and the program does the rest.

Mogul Arena consolidates your gaming experience to their platform. You can register for Dota 2 and CS:GO tournaments in the same place.

From the Esports Mogul website:
The platform deeply integrates with game title APIs and rich features provide gamers with the best UX:

• Automated Gameplay Experience
• Multiple Tournament Modes
• Friendly Esports Communities
• Achievements, Ranks and Rewards
• Match Reminder Notifications
• Easy Tournament Administration
• Lifetime Player Stats

The system also integrates with player streams and will make it easy for popular streamers to interact with their playerbase and organise subscriber tournaments, events and so on without doing all the menial shit that’s involved in setting those up without Mogul Arena.

About Esports Mogul: http://www.esportmogul.com/irm/content/about-us1.aspx?RID=396

Mogul Arena: https://mogularena.com/


The Industry

Esports is an industry that is growing in value at a strong and consistent rate, showing little sign of slowing down anytime soon. 2017 saw the industry turn over 655m USD in revenue, a 32% increase on 2016's 493m USD.  Annual revenue is projected to climb to the area of 1.5 billion USD by 2020 .The overwhelming majority of revenue is generated through sponsorships and advertising.


The Partners:


Razer

Most gamers will recognise the brand, if they aren't using at least one Razer product already. Starting out with peripheral gaming hardware and recently moving into phones and wearables, Razer reported a turnover of half a billion in 2017.  Razor was listed on HKEX, IPO in October 2017.

Razer has recorded net losses in the last 2 annual reports.
2016: Loss of US$59.6m (US$20.3m adjusted)
2017: Loss of US$165.8m (US$31.8m adjusted)
Razer has reportedly put the losses down to the costs involved in listing the company and, more exciting, entering the smartphone business.
2017 annual report: http://store.todayir.com/todayirattachment_hk/razer/attachment/2018042516320100033121462_en.pdf

Razer cited the money raised in the IPO as being aimed at the following areas:

• 25% to develop new verticals in gaming and digital entertainment including mobile devices.
• 25% to finance acquisitions that will fit with the existing company ecosystem.
• 20% to expand existing R&D
• 20% to sales and marketing initiatives.
• 10% for general working capital.

https://wccftech.com/razer-earnings-bigger-growth-bigger-margins-bigger-losses/

January 2017 - Nextbit acquisition:
phone designer/manufacturer Nextbit was also acquired and the team of 30 was brought into Razer's house. Nextbit's flagship device was the Nextbit Robin, which brought unique ways of utilising cloud technology to provide a better experience to customers through more intuitive data storage. (Former) CEO Tim Moss stated that the team is optimistic about the acquisition as Razer will have them continue work on both hardware and software, which aligns with their mission.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/30/razer-acquires-nextbit-the-startup-behind-the-robin-smartphone/

August 2017 - Partnership with Esports Mogul
Razer enters an agreement with eSports Mogul. Under the agreement, eSports Mogul will license the Razer Arena platform technologies and will drive future development of the platform within the esports landscape. While Razer retains all its core intellectual property for Razer Arena, eSports Mogul will own all newly developed intellectual property for its new esports platform, Mogul Arena.

"The existing platform developed by Razer is already deeply integrated with five of the leading global esports titles: CS:GO, DOTA 2, League of Legends, World of Tanks, Team Fortress 2."

http://www.esportmogul.com/irm/PDF/1413_0/GlobalTechnologyPlatformAgreementwithRazer


April 2018 - MOL Global acquisition:
Razer acquired Malaysia-based online payment firm MOL Global as part of a push to establish its virtual currency for gamers in Asia. Razer had initially invested 20 million in MOL in June 2017. This move makes zGold one of the biggest virtual credit systems in the world and certainly the biggest in Southeast Asia, according to CEO Min-Liang Tan.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/23/razer-makes-virtual-currency-push/

May 2018 - Razer and Singtel Memorandum,
Razer and Singtel sign a memorandum of understanding to mutually foster growth in esports, e-payments and telco. Singtel connects a customer base of 680 million mobile phone users through their network of subsidiaries and associates. Worth noting that Optus is a Singtel subsidiary. I recommend giving this article a look as there's some good info in there.
https://www.singtel.com/about-Us/ne...-strategic-partnership-in-epayments-esports-a

June 2018 - Razer 3.3m investment into Esports Mogul
The most recent news. ESH raised 4.4m via share placement, with the lion's share being taken up by Razer and Singapore-based tech firm, Cloud Alliance. Proceeds will accelerate the development of Mogul Arena for mobile and support an aggressive user acquisition, user activity and monetisation strategy.
http://www.esportmogul.com/irm/PDF/1538_0/EsportsMogulRaises441minOversubscribedPlacement


Axeso5

I don't know a great deal about these guys but here is the important info that I could find.. They're an online video games publisher that focuses on the Latin American market.
Axeso5 has 14 million active gamer accounts and a network of over 7000 cybercafes throughout the continent including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. They have a currency system on their network of games called "axesocash".

April 2018 - Axeso5 becomes Esports Mogul's official partner for Mogul Arena
Under the agreement, Esports Mogul will see Mogul Arena rolled out into Axeso5's network of over 7,000 cybercafes throughout The Americas. Spanish and Portuguese language packs are in development, pending imminent release.
https://*********.com.au/esports-mogul-rapid-growth-latin-america/

https://*********.com.au/esports-mogul-translates-gamers-language-updates

https://www.businessnewsaus.com.au/articles/aussie-e-sports-platform-to-launch-in-latin-america.html


Cloud Alliance (CloudMoolah)

Cloud Alliance is a Singapore-based tech firm that provides an aggregated payment system that accepts a wide range of payment options, from credit card to telco top-up cards. I admit I don't understand a great deal about how this sort of thing works. The system integrates with Unity and uses blockchain tech for security and efficiency.
Though their business is providing intuitive and revolutionary ways to monetise mobile gaming, Cloud Alliance has shown considerable interest in the Esports scene.
https://www.cloudmoolah.io/

June 2018 - Cloud Alliance co-invests with Razer in Esports Mogul.
"CloudMoolah, Razer and Esports Mogul will work closely together, leveraging each company’s expertise to build a rewarding Esports ecosystem for gamers and game developers, while ensuring accessibility to a new generation of mobile gamers worldwide."




The Challenges

Drawing in users.
The gaming industry is fickle and there is a very herd-like mentality. People go where the other people are. If enough people are using Mogul Arena, more will get on there. If the benefits of using the system aren’t enough to maintain a healthy enough player-base, then people will move away from it. This seems like the case in many things but let me assure you that gamers are the best at it. Look at the mass exodus of players from PUBG onto Fortnite for an example.

Convincing more companies to integrate their games.
So far Mogul Arena has a integrated a lot (basically all) of the big E-sports games.
Games that you can currently link to your Mogul Arena account:
Arena of Valor (200 million players)

CS:GO (250-350k players active at once. [steam])​

Dota 2 (430-530k players active at once. [steam])​

Hearthstone (70 million players as of Mar ‘17)​

Overwatch (40 million players as of May ‘18)​

League of Legends (81 million players as of 2017)​

Team Fortress 2 (~40k players active at once [steam])​

Vainglory (Unknown playerbase. Released with 1.5 million in 2015)​

http://www.superevilmegacorp.com/bl...rival-of-no-compromises-core-gaming-on-mobile​

Superevilmegacorp is working with Razer to deliver their game on Razer’s new phone.​

World of Tanks (About 150k players per week)​

Nice games to add (although maybe harder to organise tournaments for):
Fortnite: (125 million players, including PC and console as of June ’18)
PUBG: (400 million, including PC, console and mobile version, as of June ’18)
Realm Royale: (Modest numbers now. Will explode soon, I think.)
Clash Royale: (~120 million players)


Actually making money.
Monetisation via paid features, subscriptions and advertisements is currently non-existent (as I understand). This is a pretty big issue. It’s  hard to see the SP going anywhere significant unless ESH starts putting consistent money in the bank.


Potential Next Announcements

• Portuguese and Spanish Language packs which would allow Axeso5 to roll out the system to their player-base. Can’t be a bad thing.
• New users update. Could be good or bad.
• Integration with Razer’s new phone. Can’t be bad.
• Razer buy the company and bring them in-house like they did with Nextbit. We get a payout and become Razer investors or pack-up and move elsewhere?

Additional Articles worth having a look at:

Fortnite on Android [eventually] [Razer mentioned]:
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-12-fortnite-mobile-ios-invites-android-5795

Razer Phone Mark II could land as early as September ‘18
https://www.techradar.com/news/razer-phone-2-could-launch-sooner-than-you-might-expect

Razer going to IFA ’18 in Berlin [31 AUG – 5 SEP 2018]
https://www.virtualmarket.ifa-berlin.de/en/Razer-Europe-GmbH,c227671


Thoughts:

So where do we think the SP is headed? A few people have said it will head back to placement price pending news. Others have said the rocket is heading to the moon any minute now.