Esports and gaming job-hunting platform Hitmarker has launched its second crowdfunding campaign, the company announced today. The campaign is held through Crowdcube, a British crowdfunding platform used by many companies throughout the gaming world and beyond. Hitmarker hopes to raise £200,000 ($260,000 USD) with the campaign.
Founded in 2017, Hitmarker serves as a listing platform for jobs within the esports and gaming industries. Users are able to apply for and list jobs through the website. Video game development companies such as Ubisoft, Bandai Namco, and Rockstar Games list jobs there, as well as esports organizations like Evil Geniuses and Fnatic.
Hitmarker launched its first crowdfunding campaign one year ago, raising over £166,000 ($220,000), well over their £80,000 ($106,000) goal. The new funding round will give away a 4% stake in the company, valuing the platform at over £4.8 ($6.3) million. The funds raised through this campaign will go towards new hires in the coming years, as well as expanding the company into wider global markets.
This expansion includes building localized platforms in Brazil, Japan, Spain, and China in order to make Hitmarker the “first global professional network for the esports and video game industry.” Hitmarker managing director Rich Huggan told Dexerto how the company’s first crowdfunding campaign allowed them to double their full-time staff and expand the site to feature the mainstream video game industry alongside esports.
“This next raise is intended to help us broaden our coverage even further by beginning to create the first truly global professional network for the esports and video game industry,” Huggan says. After cruising past their goal in the last campaign, the Hitmarker team hopes to raise double their goal with this initiative.
“Having hit our £200,000 upper limit last November, we felt it was a fair minimum target for this raise,” said Huggan. “In reality, we’ll be disappointed if we don’t raise at least twice that amount this time around. Crowdcube always told us that the first raise is the most difficult, and we don’t think last year could have gone much better than it did. We’ve now got an existing network of 380 engaged investors to lean on, and we learned a lot from last year’s campaign.”
For a minimum of £11 ($14.63), fans of Hitmarker can invest in the company through Crowdcube.