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A Social Network For Gamers
Plus, Winnie founder Sara Mauskopf on the pod!
Heyyyo,
Apologies for starting things off with a humble brag … but my partners at Songfinch announced a big Seed Round yesterday including mega artist The Weeknd, Atlantic Records CEO and many more amazing entrepreneurs!
Our goal has always been to bring to working musicians, what platforms like Substack and Cameo do for writers, influencers and entertainers! Needless to say, the story got picked up by Rolling Stone and we are just losing are shit with excitement!
If you haven’t tried the service yet — please do! You’ll love it.
Ok, enough about me. This week I talked to Winnie founder, Sara Mauskopf. Winnie is a god-send to parents looking for child care, or better yet, looking to research child care! As we all head back into the world, how companies work with employees to manage childcare in a hybrid environment is going to be huge — as many of you know, part-time day care is not really part-time!
Listen to my full interview with Sara Mauskopf here 👉 https://spoti.fi/2TdWJCY
Follow me on Twitter @kitun.
Scott
Every week I breakdown startup pitches with the added hook that you can invest whether you’re accredited or not (if you don't know what that means, click here).
👇 If you like what you see here and haven’t already subscribed, please do 👇
Company Bio
PvP is the first true gamer social community.
Its suite of apps and plugins allow gamers to build squads, share streams, and get discovered across their favorite games and platforms. Somewhat similar to a previous company I reviewed called Juked, PvP is targeting the massive, rapid-growth market that is gaming and eSports. Only, as the name suggests, it’s more focused on gaming and sharing snippets across the inter-webs, rather than game watching. It’s an obvious need in a mostly influencer driven business.
Meet the Founder
Watch my full interview with PvP co-founder Phil Stover here.
Phil Stover is the co-founder and CEO of PvP. Prior to this, Phil co-founded Blue Skies Ventures to build, advise, and invest in early stage startups. Prior to his crazy life in startups, his 11-year corporate management career in banking and insurance included oversight of multi-million dollar sales initiatives and product launches, and $2.3B in P&L responsibilities. He has an undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University and an MBA from the University of Southern California.
Phil is a well-networked startup lifer. His gaming experience and LA connections should do him a lot of favors and the rest of the team he’s built is a major asset. The market is massive, but that also attracts a lot of big fishies so he’s going to need to move exceedingly fast — which so far he’s done!
Traction
Over 116,000 users, using multi-platform integration across Mobile (iOS + Android), Desktop, and Twitch
Partnerships with Twitch, Alienware, Fullscreen Media, and Blerp, resulting in above-average gaming industry retention rates
Key early investors & advisors include: Dan Offner (Oculus VR Exit to Facebook), Erik Huberman (CEO Hawke Media, Forbes 30 under 30), Scott Taylor (Move.com Exit to Monster), Jimi Gecelter (CEO ZenGaming) Michael Chua (COO Arrowiz Entertainment)
PvP has as much traction as you can possibly have at this stage of the game. DAUs are very strong, and the need for its tools for gamers and creators is very high, all of which bodes well. As long as PvP stays focused on delivering high-end tools for its users and can maintain a healthy cost of acquisition; they will have a great opportunity to compete.
Terms & Takeaway
Invest in PvP here 👉 https://bit.ly/3i8j7WF
Security Type: Preferred Equity
Pre-Money Valuation: $12,000,000
Investment Goal: $1,070,000
Raised (as of publishing): $166,385
Minimum Investment: $250
Here's what I like: As is well documented, I love the gaming/eSports market. There is just SO much potential and despite decades of success, the industry is still soooo early! What PvP has going for it (other than the domain pvp.com), is that it doesn’t have to gamify everything or try to bullshit users for screen time — it literally just has to create value for them. Help users monetize their content, enhance the gaming experience they already love and they’re golden!
Here's what I don't love: The only thing you could possibly not like here is how competitive this market is becoming and the amount of money major gaming platforms like EA and Activision have to throw at anything they want. But, you could say that about any big incumbent and honestly, most of those shops would rather buy than build anyway — so maybe not that bad for PvP either.
Who should invest and why: If you like gaming, see the market opportunity and prefer to invest in smaller bites, this is a sweet deal with a strong team and traction. A $12M valuation for a pre-revenue company is a bit steep (even for these crazy times) but given the low minimum I can look past it — especially given how much more PvP will likely need to raise as it scales.
As always, startup investing is super high risk, anything can happen. So, don’t spend money you’ll need for your kid’s PS5... 🕹 💸
Invest in PvP here 👉 https://bit.ly/3i8j7WF
Questions? DM me on Twitter @kitun