E-Sports: Mail.Ru Acquires ESforce
By Emre Bilginoglu, Attorney-at-Law, Istanbul, Turkey
Mail.Ru is a Russian internet company and has acquired ESforce for the sum of $100 million.
ESforce owns one of the leading e-sports teams in the world, Virtus.pro; Yota Arena in Moscow (one of the world’s largest e-sports tournament venues); game item trading websites; e-sports broadcasting and organizations.
The transaction and its amount is not surprising at all, given the fact that Mail.ru has the largest audience in Russia and an income of over hundred million US dollars.
Mail.ru operates most popular social networking sites, one of them being Vkontakte (VK).
VK is the Facebook of Russian-speaking countries, with at least 400 million accounts. It is one of the twenty most visited websites in the world.
Mail.ru made a smart move with this acquisition, as ESforce was already expected to continue to grow exponentially.
Mail.ru can now develop all platforms within ESforce and use VK to reach every e-sport fan. Additionally, they will have the chance to increase their market power thanks to Virtus.pro.
Investment in and the drawing power of E-Sports continues apace!
Emre Bilginoglu, who is also admitted to practise law in the State of New York, USA, may be contacted by e-mail at ‘This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ’
