Fedor Holz Acquires a Minority Stake in eSports Company Envy Gaming
ESPN announced that Germany's Fedor Holz acquired a minority stake in Envy Gaming, Inc., the parent company of Team Envy and the Dallas Fuel, Envy in the second quarter of the fiscal year of 2017.
The German poker phenom has taken the poker world by storm with almost $27 million in live poker tournament cashes according to The Hendon Mob and is now looking for success as an eSports entrepreneur.
In retrospect, the signs were on the wall for anyone that looked hard enough for Holz's minority stake acquisition when Holz won his biggest tournament victory in the WSOP $111,111 High Roller for One Drop for almost $5 million. During the event, he was wearing a Team EnVyUs jersey at the final table. Additionally, straight after his huge win, he announced during the WSOP Main Event he would be playing less poker to focus more on becoming an entrepreneur.
Holz's relationship with Envy began through a friendship with former Envy Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Nathan "NBK" Schmitt.
Schmitt introduced Holz to Envy CEO Mike "Hastr0" Rufail and Holz was interested in joining the company for various reasons.
"I like to invest in things that I'm emotionally connected to, because I feel that I contribute the most but I also get the most out of it," Holz told ESPN. "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."
Team Envy has already proven its success in the eSports industry after it awarded the 2016 eSports Team of the Year at the NowTV ESports Industry Awards. However, Holz believes his impact will further help the team particularly in tackling mindset issues the young players might 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."
At least part of the plan to achieve this includes incorporating Primed Mind, an app Holz cofounded with poker mind coach Elliot Roe. The app features more than 200 mindset coaching courses and recordings focusing on a variety of mental coaching topics. Holz shared with ESPN that the duo is working side-by-side with eSports players including Schmitt to further develop the app to include courses designed specifically for eSports players.
Holz shared his love of Envy Gaming and his excitement about what is next with his almost 43,000 Twitter followers.
I wore an @TeamEnVyUs jersey when I won my bracelet and then invested in them earlier this year. I love what they d… https://t.co/n4C3MO1M88
— Fedor Holz (@CrownUpGuy)
Despite Holz's foray into eSports, the poker world will likely continue to see plenty more of Holz, especially in big buy-in events. In September, he reaffirmed his commitment to poker joining Team partypoker and has amassed over $6 million in live tournament cashes this year including a second-place finish in the HK $1,000,000 Macau Main Event for $2.1 million in October.
Lead image c/o WSOP/Jamie Thomson
