Corsair Gaming, Inc.

Corsair Gaming is involved in the manufacture of a plethora of high-cost and high-margin gaming accessories and computer parts. Active since 1994, Corsair has seen a huge boost in revenues from 2019 to 2020 as global lockdowns saw a surge in customers spending more time on digital games than ever before.

Corsair Gaming was founded in 1994 by Andrew Paul, Don Lieberman, and John Beekley, who manufacturing CPU components under the name Corsair Microsystems. Their early products were focused on the computer customization market, selling external memory modules for high-performance custom machines. Gradually, they began to introduce other components popular with tech enthusiasts, such as cooling systems. This market grew rapidly in the 1990s and 2000s with the popularity of computer games, and Corsair found a niche in the 2010s with the rise of ‘esports’, or competitive gaming.

Esports requires top-range, high-performance machinery which is difficult to come by except from a handful of suppliers including Corsair, which is one of the largest. In 2017, American private equity fund Eagle Tree Capital acquired a majority stake in the company. Corsair crossed the billion-dollar mark in annual revenue shortly after in 2019, thanks to a considerable marketing effort made to win and secure the approval of their target demographic of video gamers.

Nevertheless, the company remains vulnerable to supply chain problems, as do many operating in the electronics sector. Some analysts have expressed concern this could limit future profits.

Corsair went public on the NASDAQ exchange in 2020, trading under the ticker ‘CRSR’. The shares were initially priced at $17. As of 2021, its market capitalization is at $2.32 billion. Eagle Tree Capital has significantly reduced its holdings in the company but remains the largest shareholder. Co-founder Andrew Paul is also a major shareholder, while institutional investors such as Vanguard and BlackRock account for a relatively low proportion of total ownership.