Fnatic's League of Legends team placed second in the recent world championship.

How Fnatic’s esports victories led it into hardware

Sam Mathews and Anne Mathews founded Fnatic as one of the pioneering esports organizations in 2004. Over 14 years, its teams have competed in over 25 games, and its League of Legends squad recently placed second in the world championships, making it the most successful Western esports team in that game. That final match was viewed by more than 200 million people, including 50,000 who watched in a big stadium.

Besides League of Legends, the organization has 10 other teams competing in games such as Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and Heroes of the Storm. And the company has taken its expertise in esports and used it to design its own Fnatic Gear brand of gaming hardware accessories, from headphones to keyboards and mice.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.