Omaken Sports acquires Heroic

The Danish team have been handed a timely boost ahead of their opening match in IEM Katowice on Thursday.

Omaken Sports announced on Tuesday that it has acquired Danish organisation Heroic for an undisclosed fee. The acquisition comes just a week after the Norwegian esports organisation, which has strong ties to the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds scene, raised NOK150 million ($17.7 million) as part of a strategy to become "a Nordic powerhouse within global esports."

Omaken was founded by Youtube star Joachim "NoobworK" Haraldsen, initially with the goal of reaching the top in PUBG. Heroic will be Omaken's competitive branch, under which all of the organisation's esports teams will compete.

"We're incredibly excited to continue the Heroic journey in the Omaken Sports group, and proud to have been acquired by them," Erik Askered, Chief Gaming Officer at Omaken Sports, told HLTV.org. "We've long wanted to expand and have felt that the organisation and brand have so much more potential, and finally we are able to execute on that and become a multi-game organisation among other things. We're looking forward to sharing news with the community on the upcoming expansions!"

Heroic was formed in August 2016, initially featuring the members of Team X. In November 2018, RFRSH Entertainment announced that the team had been sold to Seranades Global Inc. to comply with WESA's rules on multi-team ownership. At the time, RFRSH also owned Astralis, which was sold in July 2019 as the company opted to focus on its BLAST properties.

Heroic spent three weeks at No.1 in the world rankings in the fall of 2020 after a run of excellent results that included title-winning campaigns in ESL One Cologne Europe and DreamHack Open Fall. The Danish team will be competing in the main stage of IEM Katowice 2021, kicking off Thursday, in which they will be looking to return to winning form after recently dropping out of the top 5 in the rankings.

"I am super excited about our new future," team member Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller told HLTV.org. "With Omaken acquiring Heroic, we will have some really strong investors in the project that are hungry to develop us and the esports scene. The vision of a Scandinavian powerhouse is super exciting to be a part of, and to be part of it from the start is something me and my teammates are incredibly proud of.

"I think this is a big applause to the work the organization and team have done throughout the last years. We are not aiming for mediocrity."