Tesseract Esports just helped Krafton India pull off one of the biggest esports LANs of the year. The Battlegrounds India Series (BGIS) 2024 LAN took place from June 28 to June 30, 2024. Talking to Gossip.gg, Tesseract Esports’ founder, Gowtham Chelikam opens up about how the company came into being and how they started hosting esports events.
Also Read: Team XSpark Wins The BGIS 2024: Grand Finals
“We started organising events for ourselves and then for the community,” Gowtham Chelikam talks about what led to the birth of Tesseract Esports
We start the conversation with Gowtham by congratulating him on pulling off such a huge event, after which “How did Tesseract Esports come into being” became the most obvious question.
Gowtham explained that back in 2015 he heard of a game called Vainglory in an Apple Keynote and started playing it. It is because of that game he met a lot of people from across the globe, including Mahendra Raja Gopal, Director of Finance and Operations. It was because of that game they started organising tournaments for ourselves and the community. From a strong foundation that is backed by a passion for gaming and esports, Tesseract Esports has managed to expand to multiple regions, do a lot of projects and all of that while being completely bootstrapped. The following interview is a look into how Tesseract Esports has been working since 2017 to build an esports ecosystem.
Gossip: You've been working relentlessly for so many years and expanding to the SEA region, what has kept you going?
Gowtham: It's our passion for gaming, passion for the craft and passion for esports. We are very passionate about telling engaging stories and creating experiences for gamers. Since we are gamers, we are just doing what we would like to see.
Gossip: Hyderabad is a first-time host of BGMI, why this city and not some other city like Delhi or Bangalore?
Gowtham: We don’t have a say in the city that Krafton chooses to host these tournaments in. But it is good for us since it is our home ground. It is good to see some BGMI action happening in Hyderabad.
Gossip: You've been partnered with Krafton for a long time. What has working with a developer this big been like and what can we expect in the future?
Gowtham: Working with a big publisher like Krafton has given us an immense opportunity to create these large-scale experiences, working on these large-scale events. We have a very clear vision of what we want to do, and we are fortunate to be a part of the process.
Gossip: You have been bootstrapped for a while now. How have you been managing things and do you plan to raise funds in the future?
Gowtham: We are completely bootstrapped and we have been growing organically. Maybe in the future, we would want to raise funds to accelerate our expansion. We would like to look at some strategic investors. We already have prominence in the Southeast Asian region with our base in Indonesia, but we cater to the whole of the SEA region, which includes Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. We have just started expanding into North America, and you can find us doing something grand this time next year. We are also doing something in the Middle East and we were a part of the Gamers8 the last time.