Esports Insider’s The Clutch announces $25,000 prize pool supported by Overwolf 

Esports Insider is pleased to announce Overwolf, an all-in-one platform that enables creators to build, distribute, and monetise in-game apps and mods, as the official Technology Partner of esports-focused pitch investment competition The Clutch.

The Clutch marks its grand return as a physical spectacle at ESI’s flagship Major, ESI London, on September 5th-7th, 2022. 

This year, Overwolf is contributing a prize pool of $25,000 (~£20,300) to The Clutch’s London edition, with the following split: 1st place – $15,000 (~£12,200), 2nd place – $7,000 (~£5700) and 3rd place – $3,000 (~£2,400). 

The eligible winning start-up will also be granted the opportunity to travel to Tel Aviv, where Overwolf is headquartered, for a week of in-person mentoring and product acceleration. 

Uri Marchand, Overwolf CEO, commented: “Overwolf has a long history of partnering with leading esports in-game apps from Professor, which helps League of Legends players understand their match statistics, to Tracker Network, which provides a suite of stats apps for many top games including Valorant, Apex, and Fortnite. 

“Through this partnership with Esports Insider, we are excited to find the best upcoming esports in-game apps that help gamers enhance their gameplay experience. The Clutch gives us early access to this rising talent and we can’t wait to hear the pitches.”

Taking place on September 7th, The Clutch will welcome a panel of investors to judge three to four esports related start-ups. The judges involved in the panel include Shahar Sorek, Chief Marketing Officer at Overwolf and Lisa Hau, COO at Bidstack; with more judges to be announced soon. 

The application process for The Clutch is now open and the deadline closes on July 13th. Applicants can apply here.

Launched in 2019 at ESI London, The Clutch began as an in-person pitch investment competition focused exclusively on esports-related early-stage start-ups. Since that edition, it has taken place digitally on multiple occasions during the ESI Digital series of events. To date, there have been four winners: G-Science, TEAMS.gg, Anzu and iTero Gaming.

Jack J Williams, Founder and Data Scientist at iTero Gaming, commented: “Winning The Clutch 2021 was a jump-start for iTero Gaming. The prize, the exposure and joining the ranks of previous winners who have all impressed me would have been enough on its own. 

“The highlight though, was that it became the catalyst for us to work with the team at Overwolf. They really understand our vision and are providing all the support and expertise we could ask for to deliver on it. I’m looking forward to seeing how we can continue to grow this ecosystem together long into the future!”

  
An overview of some of the key points of information for easy access can be seen below!

We try to keep it as open as possible but to make it fair and competitive, two sets of criteria do apply! Companies must be prior to (or in) their first seed round (start-ups only). The companies’ product or offering must directly relate to the esports space.

From all of the applications we receive, Esports Insider will select three/four companies to present to the panel of judges/investors and live audience at ESI London in person on September 7th. Each start-up will be allowed a five minute pitch time, which will be followed by up to 10 minutes of questions.

Companies can use slides and video, just slides, or indeed they can just talk…the only thing that matters is the mics will be cut off at the five minute mark, at which point the Q&A from the judges begins. There will not be any audience questions. 

Five judges will be present, all of whom have been invited by Esports Insider. They will be active investors themselves and/or have direct links to and understanding of the investment space, or in some capacity linked to an investment fund or vehicle. They’ll also be reasonably well versed in the esports space itself too. 

The panel will have a scoring sheet, and will ultimately decide the winner of the ‘The Clutch’ trophy and the corresponding prizes on the day.