Scholastic esports platform PlayVS announced the appointment of Jon Chapman as its new chief executive officer. Chapman replaces PlayVS VP of Finance Joe Gibson, who was serving as interim CEO following founder and CEO Delane Parnell stepping down from the role at the beginning of May.
While Chapman’s expertise in esports appears to be limited, he brings decades of experience in the education and technology sectors. He spent more than 11 years in regional roles at global educational services company Kaplan starting in 1996. In 2007, he became national director of sales and business development at the company—a role he stayed in for a year before moving on to co-found corporate education technology company EverFi, which was acquired at the end of 2021 for $750M USD.
According to a release, Chapman will use his “vast knowledge and established relationships with companies such as Electronic Arts (EA), the NFL, the NHL, and other major organizations and sports leagues” to continue scaling PlayVS in the United States and Canada.
PlayVS, operates tournaments in the amateur, scholastic (K-12), and collegiate esports ecosystems throughout the United States and Canada. The company has raised $106.2M in funding since May 2018. Those funders include WndrCo, Science, New Enterprise Associates, Kevin Lin, Michael Ryan Dubin, MaC Venture Capital, Coatue, Aurum Partners, Sean Combs, Rahul Mehta, Plexo Capital, Elysian Park Ventures, David Drummond, R/GA Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, Sapphire Sport, New Enterprise Associates, Michael Zeisser, Michael Ovitz, Dick Costolo, Dennis Phelps, Battery Ventures, Adam Bain, SoftBank, Open Opportunity Fund, and Blue Pool Capital.