Mission Control Acquired by LeagueSpot

The co-founders celebrating an exit are SLU student alums who joined the St. Louis startup ecosystem following graduation. In our view, this acquisition news reflects well on the city's ongoing efforts to develop a student-to-startup pipeline that retains talent in the region.

LeagueSpot, a platform for managing competitive gaming competitions based in Chicago, announced the acquisition of St. Louis startup, Mission Control, the online platform for league management in recreational youth sports and community esports.

Mission Control worked with park and recreation departments like the City of Las Vegas, college recreation departments like the University of Kentucky, nonprofits like the Special Olympics of New York, and brands like Cinemark, Comcast, GameStop, and Hollister. According to the press release, through this acquisition, LeagueSpot now expands beyond competitive gaming into traditional sports, positioning the company to capitalize on the rapidly growing $15.3 billion youth sports market in the U.S.

To learn more about the acquisition, you can also check out reporting on the St. Louis Business Journal.

The acquisition follows a significant injection of funding into the esports league management startup in 2020. In July, Mission Control raised $1.75M in seed funding from midwest based investors, including Cultivation Capital, and Arch Grants awarded an additional $50,000 grant in October of the same year.

Founded in St. Louis in 2018, Mission Control was a community platform for recreational esports that serviced more than 300 organizations, specializing with those expanding their traditional sports offerings to include esports. Co-founders Austin Smith and Byron Abrigg developed the idea for Mission Control while working at the global sports innovation hub, Stadia Ventures as interns and post-grads from St. Louis University in 2017.

“Our business was dedicated to gathering and growing communities by utilizing recreational esports. We are thrilled by Mission Control’s new home with LeagueSpot because it will allow us to continue to gather communities on the LeagueSpot platform, the most impressive platform available to the market, as well as start gathering communities utilizing traditional sports, taking us back to our roots,” said Smith, Mission Control’s CEO.

Talking Points: Why this Matters to St. Louis

In our view, this acquisition news speaks positively to the city’s efforts to foster public-private collaboration between trade organizations, universities, nonprofits, founders and funders to develop a student-to-startup pipeline that retains talent in the region. As both of Mission Control’s co-founders were SLU students who joined St. Louis VC firm, Stadia Ventures, following graduation, this acquisition news reflects the promise of a “joined up” St. Louis startup ecosystem.

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