FaZe Clan misses its mark, falls over $100 million short of its financial target

FaZe Clan, one of the most popular esports and gaming organizations in the world, has failed to raise all the money it wanted, according to its latest Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

FaZe expected to raise $218 million from the merger with B. Riley Principal 150 Merger Corp (BRPM) that was approved by BRPM shareholders in July, but FaZe ended up raising only approximately $100.2 million due to “higher than expected redemptions by BRPM public stockholders and higher than expected expenses in connection with the Business Combination.”

As a result of that, FaZe said it has less cash available to pursue its anticipated growth strategies and the new initiatives it projected. “This may cause significant delays in, or limit the scope of, our planned acquisition strategy and our planned international expansion,” FaZe said.

The projections FaZe set in 2021 for 2022 are not the same due to a change of strategy. The organization, for example, expects the costs of revenue to be higher as a result of increased budgets in content creation and, most notably, administrative expenses. FaZe has hired and is searching for more executives to help position the brand in the market.

There were interesting findings concerning FaZe’s revenue in this latest SEC filing as well. G Fuel, a gaming energy drink, sponsorships represented 12 percent of FaZe’s revenue in 2021 and the commercial revenue in the first semester of 2022 represents 60.4 percent of FaZe’s total revenue, showing that FaZe’s finances largely rely on sponsorship deals.

FaZe became the first esports organization to be traded on the Nasdaq after the merger was concluded in July. FaZe’s share opened at $13.02 per share on July 20 and saw the stock price fall 30 percent within an hour. FaZe’s stock price is currently set at $19.