Tournament Operator Epulze Announces Layoffs

Epulze, Layoffs, Örebro, Sweden, Tournament Platforms, Tournament Operators, Funding, Esports Business News, Esports Business News & Analysis

Örebro, Sweden-based tournament organizer and platform Epulze has laid off an undetermined number of employees this week, according to an announcement on social media by its Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer Markus Lövgren.

Lövgren said the following in a LinkedIn post on Monday:

“Due to some organizational restructuring, we unfortunately have to let some of our valued team members go. These are truly excellent individuals in their field, and I would love to help them find a new home. If you have any recruitment need in the esports/gaming space, please reach out!”

Lövgren also told The Esports Advocate on Monday that these strategic layoffs were important to keep the company running, and that a delay in raising additional funds was the impetus for the decision:

“It’s an ongoing process, so we are not communicating any exact numbers right now,” he told TEA. ”We are raising funds but it’s taking a bit longer than anticipated with the financial market being very slow last year. We are slimming down to prolong our runway until the capital raise is completed while also shifting our focus towards profitability.”

Epulze operates an online competition platform, a broadcasting studio, and supports pro-division tournaments, leagues, and other esports events across the globe. The company has been relatively quiet in 2024, but in June 2023 it worked in conjunction with Southeast Asian esports event management solutions company IO Esports on the Dota 2 Bali Major—the last official Valve Major event on the competitive calendar of 2023 until The International (which took place in Seattle, Washington, at the Climate Pledge Arena from Oct. 27 – 29.

Epulze (which does business as Esports Pulze AB) was founded in 2015 by brothers Markus,  Mattias (who serves as CEO of the company), and Pontus Lövgren (who serves as head of events & partnerships). In 2019, the company raised SEK 17.5M ($1.8M USD) in a seed funding round led by Henrik von Schoultz, and in 2021, it raised SEK 57M ($6.6M) in a corporate funding round with participation from Sweden-based Svea Ekonomi and Norway-based Carucel Finance.

At one time Epulze had an office in Kuala Lumpur, and local teams based in Singapore, Kyiv, São Paulo, and Stockholm, though it is unclear as of this writing if those operations are still ongoing.