Global Poker Index Raises 4.9 Million $

Tuesday July 14,2015 :  GLOBAL POKER INDEX PARENT RAISES $4.9 MILLION
 
Mediarex hopes to build poker into an e-sport.
 
Poker entrepreneur and Global Poker Index founder Alex Dreyfus, who is also CEO of parent company Mediarex Sports & Entertainment, has announced that MSE has just raised $4.9 million in Series A funding from private investors.
 
The London-based Global Poker Index is a ranking authority for 450,000 professional poker players, and wants to aggregate the fragmented global audience for poker into a single professional league with a series of poker teams.
 
With more than 100 million poker players around the world, and working through GPI, Mediarex hopes to build poker into an internationally recognised e-sport.
 
The company announcement revealed that MSE has "…secured $4.9 million in Series A funding from a round of private investors including a first-tier private equity fund in Beijing, and angel investors from telecom, sports marketing, and financial sectors in Asia and Europe in its bid to Sportify Poker."
 
It added: "The investment will enable MSE to lay down the framework to develop the sport of poker by aggregating the game's currently fragmented audience which includes more than 100 million people around the world."
 
VentureBeat reports that the list of investors who have participated in the funding round includes individuals like Hong Kong businessman and poker player Dr. Stanley Choi, D.E. Shaw Group China CEO Donald Tang, France's telecom tycoon and co-owner of LeMonde Xavier Niel, and Chief Commercial Officer at Perform Group, John Gleasure.