Skillz Pays Out $10 Million in eSports Prizes

SAN FRANCISCO, June 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Skillz, the worldwide leader in mobile eSports, announced today that its tournament platform has paid out over $10 million in cash prizes, and now accounts for approximately 30% of all eSports earnings according to data from eSportsEarnings.com. The company has added 4 million new registered users over the last 12 months and now hosts over 150,000 tournaments per day for players in over 180 countries.

Since launching, Skillz has hosted over 40 million mobile eSports tournaments and the company's growth is accelerating rapidly. Skillz paid out its first million dollars in prizes eight months after launching. The company paid out its second million in prizes four months later. Since the start of 2015, Skillz has paid over $7 million in additional prizes and today pays out $1 million every two weeks.

Partnered with over 1,100 game studios, Skillz facilitates every kind of multiplayer competition including head-to-head, turn based, unlimited entry, freerolls and more. This diversity has helped propel the popularity of the platform with a broad demographic of gamers. Skillz reports that its player base is 45% women, and over 40% of its players are over age 35.

Recently, Skillz introduced real-time encoding and streaming technology that allows players to broadcast eSports action from any Skillz-enabled game to any content-sharing website. This streaming technology is helping game developers acquire new players, build spectator audiences and retain users.

"It took 50 years from when football was invented in 1869 until the NFL was formed. As we approach the 50th birthday of games like Pong, we're seeing video games follow the same timeline to becoming major sports," said Andrew Paradise, CEO of Skillz. "Given the growth rate, eSports will soon eclipse many traditional sports in terms of audience participation, viewership and associated prizing."

About Skillz

Skillz is the worldwide leader in mobile eSports. The company believes in making mobile games more fun and competitive for players while making game creation more lucrative for developers. Skillz eSports tournaments create direct revenue for game developers while enhancing rather than interrupting the gamer experience. Founded in 2012, Skillz has offices in San Francisco and Boston, and the company has raised $13.3M in funding led by Atlas Venture. To learn more, visit www.skillz.com.

SOURCE Skillz

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