Bloomberg Agency revealed this week that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is expected to join a $930 Million pre-IPO bet on Anime Giant.
Kakao Entertainment Corp. has won $930 million from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and Singapore, securing one of the country’s largest financing rounds at a time global investors shy away from big startup bets, the paper uncovered.
The company, a unit of Korean social media giant Kakao Corp., said it’s raising 1.2 trillion won by issuing about 2.26 million shares at 255,116 won apiece to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Singapore’s Pwarp Investment, an investment vehicle of GIC Pte.
Kakao Entertainment, which runs a stable of apps that publish popular online animated shows and novels, will use the capital to expand its content.
The company produces a slate of shows for Netflix Inc., capitalizing on booming interest for Korean content from K-pop to movies since the advent of “Squid Game.”
The deal follows Saudi Crown Prince’s visit to Seoul in November, which local media reported could precede a raft of investment deals for Korean conglomerates worth $30 billion.
The Gamer Prince
France 24 earlier published a report describing the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Slaman (MBS) as the “Gamer Prince” after hosting the international eSport gamers forum “Next World” this month.
Much like with Formula One and professional golf, the world's biggest oil exporter has in recent years leveraged its immense wealth to assert itself on the eSports stage, hosting glitzy conferences and snapping up established tournament organisers, the report said.
In January, the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund launched the Savvy Gaming Group, which acquired top eSports firms ESL Gaming and FACEIT in deals reportedly worth a total of $1.5 billion.
Despite the domestic and global difficult economic crisis and its involvement in Yemen's war, Saudi Crown Prince MBS spent an insane amount of money in one game or company’s ecosystem.
Dot eSports revealed that MBS was one of the biggest spenders, affirming that he has already spent more than $6,000 on The International 2020 Battle Pass.
Over the last three years, he spent a combined $69,494 and counting on the Battle Pass alone, with $42,100 of that coming from 2018. He has been the top contributor in each of those years and set a record by reaching Level 175,000 in 2017.
MBS has been active on Dota since 2011 and has played over 10,000 matches in Dota, totalling a 5,772-5,467 win/loss record—a 51-percent win rate.
His play-time is private, but at the last time of recording, they had put 9,046 hours into Dota, along with nearly 550 hours in Team Fortress 2.
The new findings sparked large criticism on social media, where online activists accused the gamer prince of being also addicted to cocaine.
Others linked his brutal crackdown in the Kingdom with his addiction to video games.
