E-Sports directory Abios Gaming raises investment from Bonnier Growth Media


    With my colleague Dmitri Sarle always raving about last night’s DOTA match, or how many millions of euros are in the latest tournament pool, it seems that e-sports has taken off a bit (at least in my office). One thing that’s been absent from our perspective, however, are startups in the region looking to get a slice of this rapidly-growing pie.

    One startup plowing through this new field is Stockholm’s Abios Gaming, one of the teams from Bonnier Accelerator’s Fall ’14 batch. Today the company announces it has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Bonnier Growth Media.

    Abios provides basically a listing of what matches are going to be coming up next – so if Twitch is a gamer’s TV of what’s on right now, Abios is the TV guide letting you know what’s coming up next, and what highlights have come out of previous tournaments. The platform is a little smarter than just a directory, they’ve also built a chrome plugin that alerts you to upcoming matches, so you don’t accidentally miss one.

    The idea is still a little basic, but that seems to be the state of the e-sports gaming ecosystem, according to my office. News and information is scattered across Reddit, clan message boards, and a handful niche e-sports sites providing rumors and updates.

    ”Three years ago, e-sport took off as a global phenomenon, and today there is a fast-growing digital infrastructure with streaming services, huge tournaments and a market for sponsors,” says Oskar Fröberg, CEO for Abios Gaming. “We’ve grown up in this culture and then attended the Stockholm School of Economics and the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, and now we’ve succeeded in establishing a unique service that the public likes and benefits from.”