Credit: MateCrate/SportPlatz Media
Mentioned in this article
- German amateur tournament operator MateCrate has raised $1.57M USD in new funding for its City Masters series.
- Marketing and IT services provider Sportplatz Media, German soccer magazine Kicker, and the Innovation Starter Fund Hamburg contributed to the round.
- The City Masters League of Legends tournament series will expand to two additional cities this fall, with a national German rollout to come thereafter.
MateCrate 
, a Hamburg-based startup that runs a German amateur League of Legends league called City Masters, has secured a €1.4M ($1.57M) investment round.
Investing in MateCrate are marketing agency and IT services provider Sportplatz Media, in collaboration with German soccer magazine Kicker and the publicly funded Innovation Starter Fund Hamburg.
Founded in 2017 by Sebastian Kuch, MateCrate is the company behind City Masters, an amateur esports league that is similar in approach to Super League Gaming in North America. City Masters currently holds a League of Legends tournament in Hamburg, which saw more than 12,000 players register for the recently-completed first season. Other cities that were part of season one include Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt.
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The second season will begin this fall with Cologne and Stuttgart added to the league, with more than 20,000 total participants expected across the six cities. Beyond that, MateCrate plans to expand City Masters nationally across Germany.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story listed three cities instead of the six that will be part of the second season of the City Masters. We have adjusted the article to reflect the proper number.
