Why These Esports Firms Could Have an Outsized Impact in 2020

By Chris Lange Published Jan 23, 2:00PM EST

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Why These Esports Firms Could Have an Outsized Impact in 2020 — © YouTube

Esports viewership levels are rapidly approaching those of traditional sports, and sponsorship activity is increasing. Canaccord Genuity makes a quarterly report on the esports landscape and the firm sees 10 companies having an outsized impact on the sector this year.

Enthusiast Gaming (EGLX), which trades publicly on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), stands out as the only company on this list under Canaccord Genuity’s formal research coverage. The firm’s speculative Buy rating and C$3.60 price target implies roughly a 75% upside from the current price level. Enthusiast Gaming continues its leadership as one of the only publicly traded pure-play esports companies. Importantly, it recently graduated from the TSX Venture Exchange and is set to begin trading on the TSX on January 27.

Astralis (TSX: ASTGRP) made history as the first pure-play esports organization to go public (in Denmark). It operates as a holding company for its three teams that compete in CS: GO, League of Legends and FIFA.

DouYu International Holdings Ltd. (NASDAQ: DOYU) can be thought of as the Twitch of China and is the most popular live-streaming gaming platform in the country. It boasted 281 million registered users at the time of the initial public offering, which occurred last March.

MTG operates the Electronic Sports League (ESL) and DreamHack, two of the largest competitive esports companies globally. It maintains relationships with Valve and Activision.

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The rest of this list is composed of private companies that again could see an outsized impact within the esports segment.

FaZe Clan is a hybrid competitive esports and lifestyle brand company. The organization competes at the highest level across six games, while also producing lifestyle content. It has amassed the largest social media following of any organization.

Dexerto is the leading esports-focused media company. It generates hundreds of millions of impressions globally through a mix of written articles and live event coverage.

aXiomatic began operations in 2015 with an all-star team of co-executive chairs, including Peter Guber, Ted Leonis, Jeff Vinik and Bruce Karsh. The company is perhaps best known for its majority ownership of Team Liquid, the winningest team in esports history.

Discord is a gaming-focused VoIP company and was valued at more than $2 billion in its last financing round. It boasts more than 250 million unique users and averages 15 million active users per day.

FaceIT is an esports tournament and league operator for both professional and casual gamers. It boasts more than 8 million users who compete in 12 million matches monthly.

Vindex is a recently launched esports infrastructure company that produces both live and recorded events. It plans to be acquisitive in the space to build out a scalable turnkey solution for the industry.

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About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.