- Guild eSports plc (LON:GILD) 2021 results: Revenue was £1.9m, consisting of £1.0 Sponsorship, £0.7m Prize money and £0.2m Other revenue. PBT loss was £8.8m as the company scaled up operations. Adjusted cash was £11.2m. The company has a “robust pipeline” of several sponsorship deals at “advanced stages of negotiations”.
- Sponsorship momentum: Guild offers sponsors access to the difficult-to-reach and rapidly growing Gen-Z audience. Guild has signed £8.4m of minimum aggregate contracted sponsorship revenue to date (FY22: £3.1m annualised). The company signed a £4.5m three-year deal with Bitstamp in January 2022, a two-year £3.0m agreement with Subway in March 2021 and display and gaming peripherals partnerships with Hyper X and Samsung valued at £0.9m.
- Signings and tournament wins: Guild won its fourth major esports trophy in November 2021 after ‘Hen’ won the Fortnite Champion Series Grande and propelled Guild to number 1 ranking in Europe. Key recent signings include ‘Rezon’, a 17-time Fortnite tournament winner in November 2021, ‘Nicolas99fc’, a top 3 FIFA player worldwide in December 2021, a top-ten European Apex Legends team in October 2021, and a top-tier all-women Valorant team in September 2021. Guild now has six professional teams with 22 players.
- World’s fastest growing esports organisation: Zeus Capital estimate Guild has grown its social media followers to over 1.1m at the end of December 2021, up 70% from six-months ago and 16-fold from a year ago. Continued operational progress on fanbase growth and tournament wins should provide the foundation for further sponsorship and viewership revenue progress.
- Academic progress: In Q2 2022, Guild plans to open a state-of-the-art physical space for the Guild Academy and its corporate headquarters Shoreditch, London. The new premises will provide commercialisation, branding and sponsorship opportunities for Guild. In December 2021, Sony PlayStation chose to partner with Guild to create a new FIFA22 tournament, ‘The Guild Academy Challenge’, which should attract players to Guild academy.
- Forging champions: Guild Esports is positioned to become the leading global esports brand based in the UK. With strong support from David Beckham, including contracted promotional activity, the company plans to pioneer the UK Premier League academy model in esports, attract leading sponsors, build a loyal fan base and establish a premium line of merchandise.
