Vainglory creator Super Evil Megacorp raises $26M round led by Index Ventures
Vainglory Breaks Through in E-Sports on a Tablet — Under everyone's noses, the competitive video game scene has gotten huge, with more than 113 million fans globally by some estimates.
Context & Ripple Effects
In 2015, competitive gaming on a tablet was a contrarian bet: Vainglory creator Super Evil Megacorp just raised a $26M round led by Index Ventures, the same firm that would later lead Istanbul-based Dream Games' $255M raise at a $2.75B valuation for Royal Match. The New York Times frames the moment around esports' scale — more than 113 million fans globally by some estimates — with Vainglory positioned as proof that serious competition could live on a touchscreen rather than a gaming PC.
First-order effects
- Super Evil Megacorp gets the capital to push Vainglory's esports ambitions beyond a niche title, while Index Ventures secures an early position in competitive mobile gaming years before the category drew nine-figure checks.
Second-order effects
- The round helps legitimize tablet-first competition, opening the lane that infrastructure players later filled — PlayVS built school esports programs through a $15M Series A and then a $50M Series C led by NEA, showing investors funding both the games layer and the leagues layer separately.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, mobile and cross-device titles graduate from venture experiments into the same financing tier as PC/console franchises — Elodie Games' $32.5M Series A for cross-play co-op games and Scopely's $340M round at a reported $3.3B valuation trace the same arc this 2015 bet helped start.
The trend: Venture capital's gaming thesis has scaled from early bets on unconventional platforms like tablets toward nine-figure rounds for mobile studios and dedicated esports infrastructure.