Grilla raises $3 million for skill-based gaming tournament platform

Grilla has raised $3 million in funding for its skill-based gaming tournament platform. The company has also formally launched its product.

During the beta test, the platform grew to more than 15,000 registered users. Tusk Venture Partners led the funding round.

Miami-based Grilla is an all-in-one platform where eligible users can easily create, manage and participate in any type of tournament. Players can compete in over 100 video game titles across mobile, PC, Xbox, VR and more. Grilla allows players to create tournaments, collect entry fees, manage brackets and pay prize pools.

With a built-in wallet and proprietary real money gaming features, Grilla unlocks consumers’ ability to bet on any type of video game or skill-based competition, such as golf, backgammon, bowling, chess, basketball or just about anything, said Evan Kaylin, CEO of Grilla, in an interview with GamesBeat.

It’s not about professional esports. Today, when a community of non-professional skill-based gamers wants to host a tournament, they face challenges due to a dispersed player base, a lack of infrastructure for hosting tournaments, and a limited understanding of the regulatory landscape, the company said.

How it works

Grilla’s platform provides players with the tools to create tournaments through features such as player-vs-player matches, crowd-sourced prize pools, and the ability for fans to contribute players’ entry fees.

Grilla allows players to set up their own tournaments, so players can launch amateur tournaments for games such as Call of Duty, Madden NFL, Street Fighter, and NBA2K, among hundreds of other gaming titles. It has built the infrastructure to support different tournament formats and game genres.

In beta testing, amateurs have hosted more than 1,000 tournaments on the platform, and due to demand from video games alone, Grilla is launching additional features this spring for skill-based games played in person.

Its main feature is unlocking winning potential by adding real money bets, Kaylin said.

You can find opponents in the Grilla lobby. When you place a bet, the money is taken from your wallet on the platform and placed in an escrow account. If you win, you get paid. The platform relies on the event organizer to handle any disagreements. Players can share screenshots of match results to prove who won. The company has a mobile app to support the web experience and all transactions on the website are FDIC insured. If someone leaves a match while losing, it is up to the tournament organizer to make a decision.

“As someone who has always enjoyed competing against friends while playing video games, pool or golf, I never understood that there was no place to host matches and facilitate transactions. Grilla is based on the principle that you don’t have to be a pro to compete like a pro,” said Kaylin. “We want to make it easy for everyone to host leagues for their communities while improving the experience for players with real money features. Whether you’re challenging your opponent to a cash match in a video game competition, creating a side pool in your golf tournament, or simply collecting entry fees and paying prize pools for any skill-based games of your choice, Grilla has you covered.”

Skill-based game rules

The company can legally operate in 46 states, not including Connecticut, Tennessee, Louisiana and Delaware. And when it comes to real money betting against an opponent, the company can operate in 39 states.

Bob Greenlee, COO of Grilla and his regulatory advisor, said in an interview with GamesBeat that almost all states have come up with a legal framework for skill-based gaming. Grilla does not operate where it is not legal, he said. The underlying laws haven’t changed dramatically in most states, though New York had to fight many lawsuits with the daily fantasy sports companies to reach a conclusion, he said.

Kaylin said the company does not have specific permission from game companies to use its games for tournaments. He noted that all operators on the platform adhere to the community guidelines set by the game publishers.

“We are in active dialogue with a handful of them,” he said. “And we’re also expanding into skill-based games where no one owns the IP address.”

For the most part, game companies have said nothing about Grilla’s platform. so far, the company is focused on the US market and is likely to expand into Canada.

Competitive image

There are a few companies that offer PvP betting and allow players to create and manage leagues, they either focus on head-to-head matches or solo leagues with no real money features. Grilla offers the option to compete against each other or join a league with hundreds of players with a variety of real money features to increase potential winnings if a player chooses to do so. Skillz is the largest skill game company, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. Others include Players Lounge, Face-It, and Battlefy.

Grilla said it’s the only league platform where you can create your own league and offer real money features like peer vs peer betting in the experience. The team has gone through an arduous compliance and regulatory process to facilitate these features and hold client funds through our FDIC-insured wallet.

With the new round of funding, the platform replaces archaic forms of tracking games such as spreadsheets, whiteboards, cash registers, and provides players with a digital solution to keep score and a digital wallet for prize payouts at the end of the competition. By offering these features, players can wager real money with their friends or other players in the community in a variety of game formats.

“The skill-based gaming industry is huge, encompassing everything from golf to drone racing to traditional video and mobile games, but there is no platform for non-pros to monetize their skills,” said Bradley Tusk, managing partner at Tusk. Venture Partners, in a statement. “Grilla is the first company to build the critical infrastructure needed to host real life and video game tournaments.”

Tusk Venture Partners has extensive expertise and experience in everyday fantasy sports and navigating the regulatory landscape. Anyone in the world can organize and participate in a cashless tournament on the Grilla platform.

“Gambling legalizations tend to happen in waves because politicians fear electoral repercussions for supporting more casinos or sports betting or horse racing or whatever, so it becomes a herd-like mentality where each state makes it easier for the next,” Tusk said. “We are in the middle of that right now with sports betting. The next wave will be esports and because it’s an entirely new industry. How to regulate it will be a very active debate. Grilla is positioned to spearhead it all.

Kaylin said Tusk, a former regulator, is quite helpful in providing the regulatory expertise for the company.

For money-traded tournaments, players must be 18 years or older and located in a US state with laws that allow skill-based competitions. Grilla will expand into other markets and launch various tournaments for mobile games, table games, VR/AR games and IRL games.

Origin

Kaylin is relatively new to gaming. He worked in traditional sports for about a decade, advising for leagues such as the NBA and the NFL. In 2019, he moved into gaming and joined Face-It, an esports tournament company now owned by Savvy Gaming Group.

“When I got into the industry, I quickly realized there was a huge opportunity that no one was really looking to address,” said Kaylin. “Everyone was watching the professional scene. And I saw an opportunity with the hundreds of millions of people playing competitive games with their friends, as part of different groups of all skill levels.

He added: “You could organize competitions. But in my opinion, the most exciting thing about playing a skill-based game is the chance to win money. When you look at competitions like golf, poker, backgammon, chess and some of the older skill-based games, you don’t necessarily have to be the best in the world to make money. You just have to be better than your friends you play against.”

So Kaylin started the company in September 2021 and brought some of those features to amateur video game tournament betting. The first step was to build a platform that made it easy for anyone to create a tournament, be it with a few friends or 2000 people.