Players' Lounge raises $3M for a wager-based, competitive video game platform

Newsbrief: Players’ Lounge, a startup based on paying players for their wins in competitive games like Fortnite and Apex Legends, has raised $3 million in seed funding.

It’s a model that exists somewhere between professional esports and good ol’ casual games, and looks to give competitive players a way to make money off of their matches, with Players’ Lounge getting a slice of any buy-in as well.

And while it’s not the first business of its kind, it has attracted a fair amount of attention for big name investors both in and out of typical video game industry circles.

According to VentureBeat, the musician Drake is among the company’s initial investors, along with Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, ex-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Comcast, Macro Ventures, Canaan, RRE, and Courtside.