- Mainframe Industries, a mobile gaming company that operates from studios in Helsinki and Reykjavik, announced it raised $8.1 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz
Mainframe Industries, a mobile gaming company that operates from studios in Helsinki and Reykjavik, announced it raised $8.1 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Maki.vc, Play Ventures, Sisu Game Ventures and Crowberry Capital also joined the round.
The Mainframe team is building a sandbox MMO built for cloud streaming based on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. And by building it with a cloud-first approach, it is expected to work well on streaming platforms like Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud.
“When we started our Series A process at Slush in Helsinki back in November and the following week in California, we got to spend time with (Andreessen Horowitz general partner Andrew Chen) and (Andreessen Horowitz general partner Jonathan Lai) and with (Riot Games senior corporate development manager Brendan Mulligan) and team at Riot in L.A. We had the first of many deep dives about our game and it was clear from those first conversations that a16z and Riot would bring rare qualities to Mainframe. As we continued talking, we saw how both bring unique insights, force multipliers and welcome advice to our team,” wrote Mainframe Industries CEO and co-founder Thor Gunnarsson in a blog post. “Getting to know fellow devs that share our vision is our most important priority now as we grow from our 20-strong-crew to a fully-fledged team able to make our dream real. I hope you’ll get in touch to hear more about our people, our game and how we practice our craft in the Nordics.”
At a16z, Chen has been actively investing in the firm’s gaming portfolio. Last year, Chen oversaw a16z’s investment in Sandbox VR. And in August 2019, Chen also oversaw the firm’s investment in MMO gaming company Singularity 6.
Gunnarsson believes that cloud gaming represents an inflection point in the industry — which dramatically changes how games are made in the future and the ways in which players experience them together.
“We aim to be one of the first studios to create a game made for this new medium,” explained Gunnarsson.
Key Quotes:
“Mainframe’s vision for how to innovate in MMOs is truly unique, putting games into players’ hands wherever they are in ways we’ve never seen before.”
-Brendan Mulligan
“We believe that cloud-native games are poised to revolutionize the entertainment industry in the coming years, yielding entirely new gameplay experiences and business models.”
-Andrew Chen
