Team Vitality, a professional esports team from France, has confirmed their entry to India through a post on their new country specific Instagram handle. This confirms the development from December 2019, when the team's Chief Marketing Officer, Florent Gutierrez, affirmed to popular Indian YouTuber, Rawknee about their India expansion plans.
Vitality hasn't announced the team members nor the game yet, but sources confirm that it will soon be revealed by the management. Vitality isn't the first international organization that is expanding operations to India. Established organisations such as Fnatic, TSM, Noblegg, and Nova Esports have all set up shop in India, after seeing massive growth in PUBG Mobile.
The recent PUBG Mobile World League East's Hindi stream witnessed more than 400,000 viewers, which speaks Volume about it's popularity.
A few weeks ago, the Indian Government had banned PUBG Mobile in the country under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. The game is currently eyeing for a relaunch in the December/January time frame, as hinted by professional players and influencers Kronten and Scout.
Team Vitality is a leading French esports club, which was founded in August 2013 by Fabien Devide and Nicolas Maurer. They have had a strong presence in CS GO, F1, FIFA, Fortnite Battle Royale, Hearthstone, League of Legends, PUBG, Rainbow Six Seige, Rocket League, and Street Fighter 5
Rewired.GG, an esports venture fund, had invested 14 million euros in 2019, taking its total investment in the team to more than 34 million euros, according to an article by Business Standard.
Rewired GG principle Amit Jain stated in 2019:
"Any industry with an audience that’s growing rapidly into hundreds of millions is hugely exciting, and esports is no exception. We’ve seen the current esports trend many times before in the tech sector: First, the number of eyeballs grows exponentially, and then comes full monetization. We believe that esports is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries today, especially in India, and the success of teams like Team Vitality shows that there is a real opportunity for growth in this market. We are well on the way to building one of the world’s first billion-dollar esports team.”
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