The International is an annual electronic sports Dota 2 championship tournament hosted by Valve Corporation, the video game developer behind Dota 2, in which sixteen teams are personally invited to compete. The tournament began as the first public debut of Dota 2 in August 2011 at Gamescom, with a total prize pot of $1.6 million, with a grand prize of one million dollars going towards the championship team, setting the record for being the most lucrative video game tournament at the time.

Valve announced the first edition of the tournament on August 1, 2011. It took place at Gamescom in Cologne from August 17 to 21.

Sixteen teams were invited to the tournament, with the top eight teams receiving prize money.

Place     Team                                                                             Prize money

1st         Ukraine Natus Vincere                                                    $1,000,000

2nd       China EHOME                                                                 $250,000

3rd        Singapore Scythe Gaming                                                $150,000

4th        Denmark MeetYourMakers                                               $80,000

5/6th     China Invictus Gaming                                                      $35,000

5/6th     Russia Moscow Five                                                        $35,000

7/8th     Thailand MiTH.Trust                                                         $25,000

7/8th     European Union Online Kingdom.Nirvana int                       $25,000

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(video_gaming)