The World Series of Poker (WSOP) High Roller winner and one of the most respected poker players in the world, Fedor Holz from Germany is using some of his poker money to become a minority owner of the leading eSports company Envy Gaming Inc.
According to ESPN, Holz who has earned over $27 million in live poker tournaments over the past five years as per The Hendon Mob database has bought a minority stake in the eSports company Envy Gaming Inc, the parent company of Team Envy and its sister brand the Dallas Fuel. He has invested an undisclosed amount in the second quarter of fiscal year 2017.
Holz became interested in eSports after developing a friendship with Nathan “NBK” Schmitt who later introduced him to Envy CEO Mike “Hastr0” Rufail in 2016. He also wore a Team Envy jersey at the WSOP $111,111 Big One for One Drop; which he won for around $5 million. After this win, he announced that he would be playing less poker to focus more on becoming an entrepreneur.
Holz said that he invests in what he feels “emotionally connected to.”
“I like Envy, I like to watch, I like the way they build their infrastructure and team, take care of their players. And it was just a corporation I wanted to be a part of in some way,” he further added.
Founded in 2007, Envy has already proven its success in the eSports arena and its team has been awarded as ‘the 2016 eSports Team of the Year’ at the NowTV ESports Industry Awards. Holz feels that his impact will further help the Envy team in handling mindset issues the young players may face when competing at the highest levels of competition.
“Talking to these players and seeing them myself, a lot of them still struggle with their mindset because they’re really young and the pressure starts really early,” Holz said. “I feel that the mindset or the way you approach the game has very low importance so far compared to more seen sports. I think we can bring some of that into the game, and I’d love to tackle more of that in the next year.”
It has been a busy year for Holz and he sits in the third spot in Card Player’s Player of the year (POY) race. In September, he signed a sponsorship deal with PartyPoker.
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