Sources tell The Esports Advocate that esports and video game coaching platform ProGuides will wind down operations at the end of May. Specific details on the situation were not available as of this writing, and executives at parent company Statespace did not respond to requests for comments on Tuesday as of this writing.
Founded in 2015 by Sam Wang and Kristoph Oedman, ProGuides is an esports and game training platform that connects gamers directly with professional players and coaches for one-on-one, on-demand coaching services to improve their skills in the top competitive games such as Valorant, League of Legends, Call of Duty, CS:GO, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Rainbow Six Siege, Apex Legends, and Rocket League, among others.
The company charges users a flat monthly fee of around $12.99 USD a month (currently discounted to $9.99 a month) for a pro program that gives access to “Aimlabs Discovery,” unlimited access to master classes and bootcamps, and a 10% discount on 1:1 coaching.
Since its launch in 2015, ProGuides raised an estimated $7.4M across three funding rounds. Investors in those rounds included Peak State Ventures, CJ Entertainment, GFR Fund, M13, Richard Wolpert, Brendan Rogers, NZXT, Eric Pakravan, and Keith Boesky, according to data from Wellfound.
In April 2021, (in announcing that Paul Condolora had joined the company as its new COO) ProGuides CEO and co-founder Sam Wang told TEA’s James Fudge (while at The Esports Observer) that the platform had paid out around $2M to coaches since launch. By November 2021, ProGuides had been acquired by Aim Lab owner Statespace for an undisclosed amount.
Oedman had left the company by that time (February 2021), while Condolora stayed until October 2021, and Wang made his exit at the end of 2021 following the acquisition.
When Statespace acquired ProGuides in November 2022, CEO Wayne Mackey said that the transaction was part of the company’s vision to “create a singular platform that allows everyone to get better at, and better enjoy, the games that they love.”
“Acquiring ProGuides allows us to continue to build the ultimate performance training platform for player improvement by combining both live and asynchronous training experiences via our existing Aim Lab product,” Mackey said.
It has been a challenging year for the esports industry, as closures and layoffs in 2024 have greatly eclipsed the total number of layoffs in 2023, and the industry has shifted its focus on sources of funding and income to new avenues such as betting and government-backed enterprises.