Magnus Carlsen’s entrepreneurial career has not come to an end when the Play Magnus Group was bought by Chess.com. On the contrary, the world number one is busier than ever. Last year he founded the company Pawn together with the organizers of Norway Chess. Their first project is Fantasy Chess, in which fans can put together virtual teams that then compete against each other. Carlsen loves this type of online game. He was at one point in first place among seven million in “Fantasy Premier League”.
Pawn recently raised $3 million. Its well-known backers include Peter Thiel, the early Facebook, PayPal and Palantir investor, who is also an excellent chess player, and Yuri Milner, who was already a sponsor at the Champions Chess Tour. The Carlsen family is also the main investor in the Norwegian start-up SportAI, where former Play Magnus technologists apply their experience from chess to develop analytics for other sports.
His most recent endeavour is Freestyle Chess Operations that has been founded by German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner in Hamburg. Carlsen is calling it his most important commitment. Freestyle is their prefered way of calling Fischer Random or Chess960. In February they organized the first event with classical time control at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort on the Baltic Sea. Carlsen has also joined the FC St Pauli Bundesliga chess team that Buettner will sponsor in the next season.
Thanks to his old contacts as a venture capitalist Buettner found a significant co-investor. The VC Left Lane Fund is committing $12 million. Left Lane is a $2,5 billion fund with one of its strategic lines on innovative sports leagues such as the indoor soccer series “Kings League” invented by Gerard Piqué.
Freestyle chess is now turning into a highly endowed world league. In 2025, there shall be at least three tournaments with prize money of $750,000 each in Weissenhaus, New York and Cape Town. Nine world-class players will be invited each time, and the tenth participant will be determined through an open qualification.
On Monday and Tuesday, the investors met with Buettner and Carlsen in Nashville, where his girl-friend Ella is studying. The deal was closed on Wednesday in New York. Buettner wants to win more players as board members. He has reserved 20 percent of the company shares for this purpose. The next challenge is to build an audience for freestyle chess. Buettner is optimistic that the high budgets, professional presentation, and worldclass cast of players will win over even previously skeptical influencers. He is planning to announce more partnerships and a possible teaser event during the next weeks.