Rainbow Six champs DarkZero deny conflict of interest with Raven investment DarkZeroDarkZero Esports respond to conflict of interest concerns after Dexerto found documents revealing they\u2019ve invested in merchandise company Raven. [jwplayer RTGFN5k4] Despite declaring themselves as partners in the public domain, it has not been announced publicly that DarkZero had acquired an ownership stake in the merchandise company until now. DarkZero compete in Rainbow Six Siege, recently placing first in the North American Six August Major and Season 1, Stage 2 of the North American League \u2014 results that arguably position the team as the best in their region. Raven produces and sells merchandise for partner teams Excel Esports, Rogue, Spacestation Gaming, and Tribe Gaming. DarkZero are also listed as a partner on their website. On April 27, Raven published on their site that they had raised $1.4m in a seed funding round with a \u201cUS-based private equity fund.\u201d The fund\u2019s identity was not revealed in the blog post, nor had there been any public declaration of ownership beyond company records on Companies House \u2014 the United Kingdom\u2019s official registrar. You had to have purposefully gone seeking these documents to find DarkZero\u2019s involvement in Raven. In a confirmation statement published to Companies House dated July 22, it\u2019s revealed that DarkZero Esports LLC owns 6666 ordinary shares in the company. Raven\u2019s managing director Samuel Wells owns 8500 ordinary shares, making the North American team the second-largest shareholder. Other shareholders include Adam Cooper and Robert Loveday, Raven personnel who both hold 750 ordinary shares each. DarkZero\u2019s CEO Zach Matula and director of operations Robert Stamey were both appointed as directors of Raven on April 24, according to documents. Conflict of interest? Dexerto contacted Wells to ask why DarkZero\u2019s position in Raven had not been declared in the initial announcement, nor on social media or their website. He replied: \u201cAs long-term partners, DZ took a minority share in Raven to grow their ecosystem as an esports organisation which in turn allows Raven to grow and expand as an endemic esports apparel brand. All information is readily available in the company registrar.\u201d There is nothing inherently wrong with DarkZero not declaring their ownership interest in Raven, but it raises conflict of interest concerns such as them gaining access to information about Raven\u2019s partner orgs that they otherwise wouldn\u2019t be privy to. DarkZero and Raven partner Spacestation Gaming both compete in North American Rainbow Six Siege, for example. Check out the incredible @DarkZeroGG facility featuring a very special Raven branded streaming pod \ud83d\udd25 https:\/\/t.co\/e55ddWQKB0 \u2014 Raven (@RavenGG) September 11, 2020 DarkZero\u2019s Matula responded to Dexerto\u2019s request for comment on the investment, why it had not been announced to their fans, and conflict of interest concerns. \u201cDarkZero has a minority financial interest in Raven and this has never been something that we have attempted to conceal and is even a matter of public record,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the investment is of interest to the public we would be thrilled to have Dexerto readers be aware that DarkZero is proud to have invested in the most innovative esports apparel brand in the world!\u201d People having ownership stakes in multiple companies is nothing new and there have been plenty of concerns voiced surrounding conflicts of interest \u2014 even in esports. Examples include OpTic Gaming founder Hector Rodriguez used to be a shareholder in Dexerto and was declared as such in relevant articles, ESPN covers esports and their owners, Disney, are also investors in Team Liquid\u2019s parent company aXiomatic, and Valve has had to issue multiple orders to resolve such conflicts in Counter-Strike. Earlier this October, it was unearthed that the CEO of Better Collective, the parent company of CS:GO news site HLTV, is also a co-owner of Astralis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rainbow Six champs DarkZero deny conflict of interest with Raven investment DarkZeroDarkZero Esports respond to conflict of interest concerns after Dexerto found documents revealing they\u2019ve invested in merchandise company Raven. [jwplayer RTGFN5k4] Despite declaring themselves as partners in the public domain, it has not been announced publicly that DarkZero had acquired an ownership stake in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}