Playbrain's staff in Tokyo.
PlayBrain's staff in Tokyo.
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PlayBrain raises $1.9 million for League of Legends esports events in Japan

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

PlayBrain has raised $1.9 million in seed funding for its business of staging esports events in Japan, including the League of Legends Japan League.

The money comes from investors, including the Berlin-based Bitkraft Esports Ventures, one of the most prolific esports investment firms. PlayBrain will use the new funding to scale the team, accelerate growth, and support costs to lead the creative direction, operation, and commercialization of League of Legends Japan League (LJL). Market researcher Newzoo reported that 67.6 million players in Japan will spend $19.2 billion in 2018, making it the third-largest games market in the world.

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Written by

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.