Esports Legends Launch Popdog With $9 Million Funding Round

By Emily Gera

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Evil Geniuses CEO Alexander Garfield is heading a new technology and services company which will develop products aimed at optimizing live streaming for tournaments, talent, and publishers, it was announced today.

The company is called Popdog, and will be starting things out with a $9 million Series A funding round led by Makers Fund and Korea Investment Partners.

“We’re building our company around the core belief that eSports and gaming video content, born more from technology than any other sports or entertainment verticals we’ve seen, need better technology in order to be properly understood, monetized, and optimized,” says company CEO Garland in a prepared statement.

“The industry needs a backend, and our mission is to be that backend by supporting the ecosystem as a whole with a comprehensive offering of technology and services. This funding brings us one step closer to fulfilling that mission. We’ve already assembled an incredible team of industry leaders, product experts, and eSports veterans, and
we’re excited to begin rolling out a suite of products that we think will make operating in the space transparent and scalable, as opposed to opaque and speculative.”

Alexander Garfield, a two-time winner of The International tournament, is perhaps best known for his role in helping to build pro-gaming organizations Evil Geniuses and Alliance into eSports heavyweights. Garfield later sold the teams’ parent company GoodGame to Twitch in 2014.

Alongside Garfield, Popdog’s co-founders include CTO and CPO Andreas Thorstensson, a former Counter-Strike world champion who Co-Founded SK Gaming; CSO Niles Heron, consultant who has taught and mentored at accelerators such as TechStars, Gener8tor and Detroit’s TechTown; and CCO Colin DeShong, the former COO of GoodGame, Evil Geniuses, and Alliance, where he was Garfield’s long-time partner.