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LA Angel Investors Put Backing Into E-Sports Franchise, The Immortals

A long list of Los Angeles angel investors has made a foray into the interesting new area of e-sports, saying Wednesday that they have acquired Team 8, a professional e-sports team, and renamed the team, the Immortals. The professional video game team competes in the League of Legends North American League Championship Series. Investors in the team include Clinton Foy, who is a venture capitalist at Crosscut Ventures; Brian Lee of Honost Co.; Peter Levin of Lionsgate Interactive Ventures; Allen DeBevoise of Machinima; Steve Kaplan of Oaktree Capital; Gregory Milken of March Capital Partners; Paul Rappoport of XPRIZE; Akinobu Yorihiro of Yoshimoto Kogyo; and Machine Shop Ventures, the investment arm of the band Linkin Park. The new company will be headed by new CEO Noah Whinston. Of particular interest is the inclusion of Steve Kaplan, who also is an owner in a more traditional sports team, the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies, and Clinton Foy, who served as COO of Square Enix.