Grid Finder raises £200k in pre-seed funding led by Kevin Beales to develop its sim racing platform
The pre-seed investment was led by Kevin Beales and will fund platform development and community growth.
Grid Finder operates an online platform that connects gaming communities and assists with race management, tournament organisation and driver recruitment. The Newcastle upon Tyne firm also provides a marketplace for virtual racing services, coaching and vehicle liveries.
Newcastle-based Grid Finder has secured £200k in pre-seed funding from an angel syndicate led by Kevin Beales. The capital will be deployed to expand the user community and enhance the platform feature set.
Established by local motorsport enthusiasts Tom Bunten and Nikhil Patel, the startup hosts over 1,800 esports communities on its platform. The founders connected with their backer at a local tech social event before joining the Ignite accelerator programme.
From the founder
"I built Grid Finder to solve a problem for what I thought was a relatively niche group of sim racers I’d been racing with online. 6 months later, over 1000 esports communities had listed themselves on Grid Finder and I realised this was a real opportunity to build a useful suite of tools that solves problems for over 1.8 million sim racers and hundreds of millions of casual online racers worldwide."
Tom Bunten
Founder at Grid Finder
Investor perspective
"From our first casual meeting at the Ignite event, I was impressed by what Tom had achieved in such a short period, the scale of opportunity globally and his vision. When shared with other angel investors, they felt the same and we were keen to support Tom and Nikhil."
Kevin Beales
Angel investor, Kevin Beales
Use of funds
- 01Continue product development
Investors
Categories
About the company
Grid Finder
Grid Finder provides a discovery and management platform for online racing communities.