Esports seems to be attracting more and more celebrities and stars every week. Esports has now grown to such an extent that even professional football players, and venture capitalists are investing into teams and making the industry even more competitive than it was before. Today, we look at Keisuke Honda’s latest venture into esports, with his investment into Gen G – an already successful esports organization.
Who is Keisuke Honda?
Keisuke Honda is a Japanese football player who has played in a range of leagues during this time. A central attacking midfielder, he’s known for his speed and clinical finishing. He played in Russia for a number of years, before transitioning to AC Milan in the Italian league and currently plays for Neftci PFK in the Azerbaijan League in the twilight of his career. But his stock in Japan remains extremely high and is very much seen as a household name.
Honda, as you might have guessed, is also an avid gamer, and at 34 he was intrigued with early-day games when the NES and other vintage consoles were available, which may be the reason why he founded his VC company, and ultimately why he decided to invest in esports.
What is Keisuke Honda’s VC Company?
Honda co-founded “Dreamers VC” along with Will Smith, yes – that Will Smith, the insane famous actor). Dreamers VC is a shared passion for both Will and Keisuke, and they aim to bridge the gap of funding between established Japanese investors and early-stage US based companies.
Dreamers VC has a wide-range of investments currently, in many different industries. Some of the more notable are TheBoringCompany (Elon Musk’s tunneling solution), Brella (a modern child care company) and companies in a variety of industries such as medical care, travel and virtual payments (similar to PaySafeCard in Japan).
Through Dreamers VC, it appears that both Will, Keisuke and the rest of the Dreamers VC team share a passion for investing into small startups, or even well-established ones with ambitions to become even better – and we think that we will see a few more esports organizations pop up on that list in the very near future.
What was the Esports team that Dreamers VC / Keisuke Honda Invested in?
A rather new team around the world, Gen G were kickstarted and invested into by Dreamers VC. Gen G was established in 2017, and was rated as #6 in the Forbes list for the most valuable esports companies. Gen G currently boast an impressive 7-major tournament winning trophy cabinet in League of Legends, PUBG, and Heroes of the Storm.
Gen G was not started from the investments of Honda, however Dreamers VC did give Gen G the kick it needed to adapt and garner more marketing, teams, and talent along its path. Gen G have three main offices in Shanghai, Seoul and Los Angeles.
Gen G are continuing to push boundaries with an amazing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team, a major-winning League of Legends and PUBG team – and have even opted to play in new games such as Valorant. All of the above will hopefully put Gen G on the fast track to being one of the best teams in the world across all the games.
Why would he invest in Esports?
It’s hard to say exactly the reason behind why Dreamers VC, and Keisuke Honda invested into the esports team, but we can take a good guess. Esports as an industry has grown astronomically over the last few years, and even with the covid pandemic hitting the major, sell-out stadiums – online viewing has been through the roof.
Esports teams don’t often get much of their money through winning tournaments, but rather through sponsorships and apparel. Gen G as a team, have 8 teams, and two academy teams that will be sure to be trained up to the highest caliber of gameplay.
Making this investment into the success of Gen G has likely already made back profit because of the recent boom in esports, but there is no question that esports is becoming a very normal and well-received around the world. Who knows, we have already started to see talks between esports and Olympics, which would rocket the esports industry through the roof.
To Wrap Up
There is no question that investing into esports has potential, and both Will Smith, and Keisuke Honda believe in this too. Esports as a recognized sport will continue to grow inevitably and one day, we may even see esports as a main sport on the television.