Top eSports Startups in 2026

Skillz is the leading marketplace platform that helps players discover mobile games and compete against other players around the world. At the same time, the company helps developers build multi-million dollar franchises by enabling social competition in their games. Leveraging its patented technology, Skillz has hosted over 2 billion tournaments entries for 30 million mobile players worldwide and distributes over $60 million in prizes each month. Headquartered in San Francisco and Portland, the company is backed by leading venture capitalists, media companies, and professional sports leagues and franchises including the investment arm of the NFL and owners of the New England Patriots, Milwaukee Bucks, New York Mets and Sacramento Kings. Skillz has also earned recognition as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, CNBC’s Disruptor 50, Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups, and the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc. 5000.

Blaze as a product is defining a new category in gaming. We have taken elements of casual and social gaming and turned it into a real-money wagering product. Our proprietary content and platform creates a truly differentiated player experience.

Midnite is a next-generation betting platform that is built for today’s fandom. We are a collective of engineers, quants, designers, and marketers who all share a passion for esports, sports, and gaming. We aim to bring fans together and enhance their interactions with their favourite games through the rush of winning money. Whether you want to back your favourite football team or put some money down to win your next game in Call of Duty, Midnite lets you get some skin in the game. Designed and built from the ground up with the newest technologies, we made Midnite for all levels of fandom. Making Midnite intuitive, immersive, and immediately understandable is hard work. But we believe that by keeping this our north star, we can make something truly awesome. We are backed by some of the world’s top investors that have brought you companies like Draftkings, Betfair, Revolut, Just Eat, and many more.

Futbol is the only sport played in 200+ countries, has a fan-base of the half the world’s population and is a $44B industry and growing? Even though it’s the largest sport in the world, more than 500M youth go underserved and unnoticed due to economic and geographic barriers, impeding them from connecting outside of their immediate communities; with those best able to help them succeed. A key underserved market is the female population. FutbolConnect’s mobile technology and FREE online tools overcome these barriers so they can be viewed, connected or discovered, by millions of coaches worldwide who are seeking new talent, simply by completing a FREE multimedia profile where they can --Input their stats, start creating their sports resume --Upload & post their pics and videos --Connect & chat with others --Select, follow & see live scores of their favorite professional teams --And engage with great content Our competitors all have a Futbol web presence with multiple features, several language options, and FREE and/or FEE-based services. However, their focus is on established and professional players. FutbolConnect will connect with those players who have the economic means but also the millions of players who don’t. We’re a Freemium model, building a searchable database of a coveted market of footballers to attract digital advertisers, corporate sponsors, and upsell with other premium valued added services; eStore, eTraining, Games and more. . Our Go-to-Market Strategy entails: -- Kick-starting with “Boots on the Ground” --Targeted social media marketing, campaigns and online ads (earned/paid) --Sponsorships, Tournaments and Events --Strategic partnerships --Professional Endorsements

Aiming.Pro helps gamers improve their skills at esports. It offers an aim trainer, an interactive training course, and data insights to enable gamers to improve faster. The esports industry is booming. The audience for watching video games is now larger than Netflix and Amazon Prime Video combined and esports prize money exceeded $200m last year. An increasing number of people see esports as a viable career path either as a pro gamer or as a streamer (top streamers can earn millions per month). Over half the audience for livestreams wants to try livestreaming themselves and over a third of gamers would like to become professional. A prerequisite for this is actually being good at gaming but until recently there has been a lack of services to help with this. This is where [Aiming.

SteelSeries is a global leader in enhancing gamers' experience through devices and software they need and want. Our mission is to help Esports pros win major tournaments. And wow, have we succeeded! Esports pros have won more prize money using our gear than any other brand (and we are just a little bit proud of that). We understand and share the passion for gaming better than anyone else because we, too, are dedicated gamers on a mission to cut through the flash and hype. We bring cutting edge products to life that meets real needs. We believe in creativity and imagination, in being true to gamers and ourselves and displaying the same killer instinct in our work as we do when we game.

GFR Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital fund that invests in early-stage startups that are disrupting the consumer entertainment industry. GFR Fund is managed by GREE VR Capital, an affiliate of GREE Inc., a global leader in the mobile gaming industry. With over a decade of experience driving innovators in multi-platform entertainment, we see emerging technologies such as VR, AR, AI, Video Streaming and Blockchain as powerful tools that will propel the entertainment industry into a new generation of consumable content. We are looking for talented entrepreneurs who share our passion and values to help realize their vision and expand their businesses globally.