UK startup Swiftskill raises £150,000 to support and improve aspiring esports professionals

UK startup Swiftskill raises £150,000 to support and improve aspiring esports professionals

2 February 2022

The world of esports in the UK has seen a series of interesting developments over the past weeks and months. Events like the opening of a brand-new National Esports Performance Campus in Sunderland by the British Esports Association and UK-based esports organisation Guild Esports signing a massive £4.5 million sponsorship deal with Bitstamp earlier this month are living proof of the potential of esports in the UK. The latest successful round of funding by UK-based esports analysis platform SwiftSkill is one of the latest additions to the booming industry.

What is SwiftSkill exactly?

SwiftSkill is a new digital platform that was founded by Anil Peri from Cranfield University and Shankha Dutta from Lancaster University. Being semi-professional gamers themselves, the two university students realised that there was very little support and advice available for aspiring esports professionals, and that the opportunities to make it to the elite level were not equal for all players. As a response, they came up with SwiftSkill, a virtual platform aimed at providing esports players with the information and insights they need to track and improve their performance.

“Every gamer plays differently and there can’t be a one-size-fits-all training for those eager to become esports professionals”, says SwiftSkill co-founder Anil Kumar about the service, “At SwiftSkill, we are giving aspiring professional gamers the insight they need to play better”.

SwiftSkill is an integrated digital analysis tool that can be adjusted to a player’s specific goals and games. It identifies trends and skills during matches in order to provide insight, heatmaps, and details breakdowns of each performance. As the company itself stated in its press release after announcing the £150,000 of funding it recently secured, the objective is not just to create a tool that encourages esports professionals to grow, but to help gamers coach themselves to become better players.

£150,000 to stimulate growth

The £150,000 in pre-seed funding that was raised from British investment firm Jenson Funding Partners earlier this month will be used to expand SwiftSkill’s team and to include more esports titles in its service. For the moment, SwiftSkill is only available for players of tactical FPS Valorant, but the idea is to make the service available for other games as well, including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The funding from Jenson will allow SwiftSkill to work with the unique metrics that each esports title provides, which in turn will result in an optimal, custom-made service for every player.

“The gaming sector has consistently grown in recent years and the pandemic escalated the lucrative investment opportunities present in the industry”, commented Jeffrey Faustin, CIO at Jenson Funding Partners, after the deal with SwiftSkill was made public, “Esports presents a huge opportunity and innovative businesses such as SwiftSkill are driving the growth of the industry”.

News