ESTV

ESTV aims to become the ESPN of esports.

Have you heard of esports? Short for electronic sports, this is a fast-growing form of entertainment that involves playing and watching video games.

Gaming is a ninety-seven-billion-dollar market in the U.S. And a $192 billion market globally. Worldwide, more than three billion people play video games.

But remember, esports isn’t just about playing video games. It also involves fans watching others play. This creates a social element that’s crucial to the sector.

By the end of 2025, the esports audience will surpass 640 million. And as a whole, esports generated more than a billion dollars in revenue last year.

CNBC ran a recent article entitled, “From Casual Gaming to Making Millions: Inside the Fast-Growing Esports Industry.” And Forbes ran an article titled, “Esports 101: What You Need to Know About This Quietly Massive Entertainment Phenomenon.”

So, what’s ESTV’s role in this sector?

Essentially, this company aims to create a platform similar to ESPN, the television network dedicated to all things sports.

ESPN grew to become a fifty-billion-dollar business by providing sports fans with things like highlights, scores, commentary, and eventually live content. This is what ESTV envisions for esports fans.

ESTV is a dedicated channel for esports and gaming personalities. Fans can watch live esports events, interact with their favorite gamers, and socialize with other fans.

In addition to a focus on esports, ESTV has special-interest channels. For example, there’s ESTV College and ESTV Racing, which feature college sports and racing content, respectively.

ESTV can be accessed on more than one billion devices. And its platform already has more than 10,000 videos on demand.

The company has more than fifty distribution partners, including Amazon, Roku, and AppleTV. And it receives more than nineteen million unique monthly viewers a year.

Notably, ESTV was launched in 2019 by the Founder of Television Korea 24 and TVK-POP Video on Demand, the first Korean-American networks broadcasting in the U.S. since 2005.

With funds raised, ESTV will launch two new special-interest channels and expand distribution efforts. It’ll also seek to create original programming and more esports-related content.

Team Background

Eric Yoon - Founder & CEO

Eric has extensive experience in the television and media sectors.

Prior to starting ESTV, he founded Television Korea 24 and TVK-POP Video on Demand, the first Korean-American networks broadcasting in the U.S. since 2005. Before that, he spent three years as an esports advisor with the NFL Alumni Association.

Earlier in his career, he worked in finance, serving as Senior Vice President with UBS, an investment-banking company, and Vice President at Merrill Lynch, a similar banking company. Eric began his career as Assistant Vice President with First Interstate Bank.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Ed Fries - Advisor

Ed created his first video games for the Atari 800 gaming console in the early 1980s. From there, he joined Microsoft in 1986 and spent the next ten years as one of the early developers of programs like Excel and Word.

He soon left the Office team to pursue his passion for interactive entertainment and created Microsoft Game Studios. Over the next eight years, he grew the team from fifty people to more than 1,200, and published more than 100 games. He also co-founded the Xbox project, Microsoft’s popular gaming console.

In 2004, Ed retired from his Microsoft job to continue working in the video-game business, this time as a board member and advisor to various publishers, game developers, and media companies. In 2007, he launched his own startup, FigurePrints, a company using 3D-printing technology to bring video-game characters to life.

Co-Investors