EliGE and Hungrybox become owners of Team Liquid

Team Liquid have added five of their players and creators as co-owners of their organization, including long-time Counter-Strike star Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski.

Stationed in both the Netherlands and the U.S., Team Liquid are a prominent esports organization with top competitors across multiple competitive titles.

They’ve now expanded their ownership group with five of their members — ranging from a fighting game pro, to an actor, to a women’s basketball star — in an effort to access more capital and give them real stakes in the org.

The leaders at Liquid personally selected the group of members that were allowed to invest and acquire shares in the organization.

Those who now own some of the company include CS:GO star EliGE (who joined the org in 2015), Super Smash Bros. Melee player Juan ‘Hungrybox’ Debiedma, WNBA star Aerial Powers, poker player and streamer Alexander “Lex” Veldhuis, and actor and fighting-game-enthusiast Asa Butterfield.

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There are only a handful of examples of major organizations welcoming their members as co-owners to date. 100 Thieves welcomed creators Rachel ‘Valkyrae’ Hofstetter and Jack ‘CouRage’ Dunlop as co-owners in April 2021, the same month Nicholas ‘Nickmercs’ Kolcheff obtained equity in FaZe Clan.

Similarly, Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg obtained ownership in TSM in 2019 (though he recently had to let go of it when he left to join Liquid in November 2021) and longtime T1 star Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok was named a co-owner of the org in February 2020.

“There’s a difference between being awarded equity as a form of compensation, to provide alignment to the organization, versus an elective investment of their own capital into the organization that they’re part of,” Team Liquid co-CEO Steve Arhancet told Digiday. “I think it speaks volumes to their own decision-making and degree of confidence.”