A new local startup that’s found a niche in hosting electronic sports viewing parties won first place and $4,000 in Northwestern University’s Wildfire Demo Day competition.
FanHome, founded by CEO Lucas Pasch, hosts e-sports viewing parties for fans at local bars, theatres and retail spaces. Capitalizing on the fact that e-sports fans are limited in their options to watch games with other fans, FanHome has provided a platform where they can find and purchase tickets to e-sports events in their area.
“Right now, your options to watch e-sports are to sit at home and stream content on Twitch.tv or you spend thousands of dollars on tickets and travel to get to the live event, which is typically in Los Angeles, South Korea or China,” said Pasch, who is an MBA candidate at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business. “But fans are ready to consume their favorite e-sports the way that traditional sports fans consume their content, which is socially, elbow to elbow, next to other people that truly care about they’re watching."
On Demo Day, which took place Aug. 30, FanHome was one of 10 student startups that pitched their companies to a panel of judges, which included Glenhill Capital Founder Glenn Krevlin, InvestHER Ventures Founder Gerri Kahnweiler and Kristi Ross, the co-CEO and president of tastytrade.
Besides FanHome, the judges awarded three other student startups $6,000. PAL, a startup that makes wearable technology to detect, notify and reduce emotional episodes among autism patients, won second place and $3,000, and People6, a digital agency that matches employers with college students looking for jobs, won third place and $2,000. Additionally, LineShift!, a supplier of modern manufacturing tools, won $1,000 for being the audience favorite.
Aside from the check FanHome received for winning Demo Day, Pasch said his startup has received about $16,000 from other Kellogg programs designed to help student entrepreneurs.
Pasch launched FanHome in June, and since then, has hosted four events in Chicago, each one growing in size, with the latest one attracting about 50 fans. And the good news for FanHome is that e-sports don't have an off season.
“There are 10 to 15 really major, competitive e-sports leagues and there are major events all year long,” Pasch said.
E-sport viewing is an industry that has boomed over the last few years, especially with the rise of Twitch, an online e-sports streaming site. According to Business Insider, approximately 300 million people worldwide tune in to watch e-sports today, and by 2020, that number will be closer to 500 million.
He said that FanHome makes the majority of its revenue through ticket sales, but it also recruits sponsors for its events and takes a cut of food and drink sales from the venues that host them.
“For example, we call Waterhouse Tavern and Grill in Lakeview and say, ‘We have 35 to 50 people that want to come to your bar on a Tuesday night to watch Overwatch from 7 to 11 p.m.’—that’s worth something to them,” Pasch said. “They’re not going to fill their bar on a Tuesday night.”
FanHome’s next event is scheduled for Sept. 23, where attendees can watch a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament. Between getting more events on their calendar and attracting new fans, Pasch said FanHome is focusing on using its recent funding to improve its website and expand.
“We were able to check the right boxes this summer to know that this is something we should absolutely be pushing forward with,” Pasch said. “We’re really excited about the momentum that we’re developing here.”
