Virtus.pro

History

2023

By March 2023, Virtus.pro is in the top 10 esports clubs in the world in terms of the number of prize money earned (more than $18 million). The team has rosters for Dota 2, CS: GO, PUBG Mobile, Warface and other games.

VK in the first quarter of 2023 also agreed to sell the e-sports projects Epicentr (Cyprus) Ltd. and ESforce Agency Ltd. for 47 million rubles. Both companies are involved in organizing international esports tournaments and marketing

2022

Counter-Strike main tournament win: Global Offensive

On November 13, 2022, the final of the IEM RIO Major 2022 tournament took place - the largest Major Counter-Strike: Global Offensive series competition. The winner was the Russian company Virtus.pro, which in connection with the anti-Russian sanctions acted under the neutral name Outsiders.

In the final, Virtus.pro defeated the Danish team Heroic with a score of 2:0 (16:12, 16:5). The prize fund of the tournament is $1.25 million. Players will Virtus.pro get $500 thousand in prize money.

Virtus.pro won the main CS: GO tournament and earned $500,000.

Outsiders have come a long way to the final: after the RMR tournament, they got into the Challengers stage, from where they could already get into the Legends stage. In both cases, the team needed to play four matches to go further (in each case with a score of 3:1).

Outsiders had already faced Heroic in the Legends stage and then relented. So today, we can consider, a revenge took place. Heroic immediately qualified for the Legends stage and also reached the final stage with a score of 3:1.

In the quarterfinals, Outsiders met with the team of the British club Fnatic, and then in 1/2 played with the team of the German organization Mouz. In turn, Heroic passed the Russian Team Spirit and the Brazilian Furia in the appropriate stages.

Outsiders (Virtus.pro) was played by Qikert (Kazakhstan), Jame (Russia), Fl1t (Russia), N0rb3r7 (Russia), Fame (Russia). Dastan coach represents Kazakhstan. Outsiders is the second name for the Virtus.pro, most of whose teams in various disciplines were forced to abandon the demonstration of the name and sponsors due to sanctions.

The tournament in Rio de Janeiro was held for the 18th time in history. 24 teams took part in the competition. Russian Cloud9 and Team SPIRIT teams dropped out of the tournament at the 1/4 final stage, earning $ 45 thousand each. The finalists of the past major, the Na'Vi team from Ukraine, were also eliminated in the quarterfinals, the winners of the May Faze Clan tournament from Europe could not reach the playoffs^[1]

Sale of the team for 174 million rubles

VK sold one of the strongest esports teams in the world for Virtus.pro 174 million rubles. This is stated in the reports of the holding, which was published on March 16, 2023.

As Vedomosti writes with reference to VK materials, the transaction was made almost at the carrying amount of the asset - 161 million rubles. As a result, the Group recognized profit from the sale of a subsidiary in the amount of RUB 13 million.

VK has sold one of the strongest esports teams Virtus.pro

According to experts interviewed by the newspaper, under the conditions of sanctions, making money on e-sports is not easy, so VK gets rid of its e-sports assets for "much less money from the original transaction."

The founder of the Vengeance Games studio, Konstantin Sakhnov, believes that against the background of VK's previous investments in e-sports, the amount of 174 million rubles looks "insignificant."

This may mean either that the Virtus.pro is not considered a potentially valuable asset, or that the new owner is a person close to VK, he said.

VK-owned esports holding ESforce announced the sale of the Virtus.pro back in September 2022, as a result of which Armenian entrepreneur Aram Karamanukyan became the owner and CEO of the club. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed then. Karamanukyan stated that after the purchase he owns all the assets of the Virtus.pro, including contracts with players.^[2]

Notes