PlayVS operates a platform that organizes varsity esports leagues for high schools, enabling students to compete in team games and earn varsity letters. The company partners with the National Federation of State High School Associations and 23 state associations and requires faculty supervision for teams. PlayVS runs two academic-year seasons and offers games including Rocket League, League of Legends, Fortnite and Overwatch through publisher partnerships. Over 21,000 schools and 143,000 students have registered on the platform; pricing noted in the article is $63 per participating student or $1,024 for 16 players per season. The company is pursuing expansion across all 50 states and diversification of offerings, and has seen increased interest during COVID-related school disruptions. PlayVS is Santa Monica–based and described as a two-year-old company with more than $100 million in total funding after recent raises. PlayVS provides an infrastructure that lets schools create varsity esports teams and run seasonal leagues, operating under an exclusive partnership with the NFHS and direct integrations with game publishers to pull player stats. Its first product, Seasons, charges $64 per player and launched in October 2018, expanding from five to eight states in its first year; the upcoming fall season will give all 50 states access and 15 states will compete for state championships. The platform supports League of Legends, Rocket League and SMITE today, with plans to add more titles in the future. Demand indicators include a 13,000-school waitlist representing roughly 68% of U.S. schools and a comparison that just over 14,000 high schools run football programs. PlayVS has scaled headcount from 18 to 41 employees in the last year and positions itself as a recruitment channel for colleges and esports organizations. Leadership has signaled plans to expand beyond high school into collegiate products and to pursue hires and potential mergers and acquisitions using new capital. PlayVS builds esports infrastructure and organized leagues for high school students. It operates a platform that handles team schedules, district league schedules, coaching clinics, referees, and in-person State Championship spectator events through a partnership with the NHFS, described as the NCAA of high school sports. The company launched earlier this year and is testing a Season Zero in Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Rhode Island while preparing an Inaugural Season for 2019; it is also adding Alabama (AHSAA), Mississippi (MISSHSAA) and parts of Texas (TCSAAL). PlayVS recently expanded its game roster by adding Rocket League and SMITE, joining League of Legends which was added two months earlier. Financially, PlayVS closed a $30.5M Series B and had raised a $15M Series A six months prior. CEO Delane Parnell said the opportunistic round provides more stability and runway to hire senior employees and leadership and gives the company a war chest to pursue its strategies. To broaden access while state and district rollouts continue, PlayVS launched Club Leagues, a product identical to its sports leagues but without State Championships and intended to be phased out when official leagues become available. PlayVS operates a platform that schedules games, helps schools hold try-outs and form teams, and pulls in real-time game stats via partnerships with game publishers. The company partnered with the NFHS to build leagues, rules, officiating and playoff formats for high school esports. PlayVS launched publicly out of the LA-based Science startup studio in April and will debut an inaugural season in October. That first season will span more than 18 states and reach approximately 5 million students across about 5,000 high schools. Games for the inaugural season will be PC-based and come from the MOBA, Fighting, and Sports genres. PlayVS says the new funding will be used to expand the product and team with the goal of putting its platform in every high school across the country.

Total raised

$106M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Nov 2020