RIOT, BLIZZARD, VALVE & BUNGIE VETERANS RAISE $37.5M TO LAUNCH THEORYCRAFT GAMES

New game studios Theorycraft Games has secured $37.5M USD in a Series A funding round led by NetEase, Inc.

Other participants in the round included NEA, BITKRAFT Ventures, Griffin Gaming Partners, SISU Game Ventures, and a small group of strategic angel investors. Theorycraft says it will use the new capital to recruit diverse and driven talent to its team to develop a community-driven, PvP game available across multiple platforms. 

Founded by Riot Games, Bungie, Blizzard, and Valve Software veterans, the Theorycraft founding team has a strong track record leading some of gaming’s most successful franchises, including League of Legends, Halo, Destiny, Overwatch, Valorant, and Team Fortress 2. Joe Tung, CEO and Founder of Theorycraft Games, stewarded multiple genre-defining, billion-dollar franchises as the former EVP of League of Legends franchise and EP of Destiny and Halo. 

Alongside Joe, Theorycraft Games has an incredibly talented founding team that includes former Tech Lead for Valorant, Overwatch and Halo, Michael Evans, as Chief Technology Officer; former Creative Director at Bungie, Mike Tipul, as Chief Creative Officer; former Art Director on Valorant, League of Legends, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2, Moby Francke, as Art Director, and former Global Revenue and Finance Lead for League of Legends franchise, Areeb Pirani, as Chief Operating Officer.

“The Theorycraft team has a strong track record leading some of gaming’s most successful franchises. With the resources and independence they now have, we look forward to what they will come up with next,” said Simon Zhu, Head of Investment & Partnership at NetEase Games.

“We feel pretty damn fortunate—not only to have gotten off to such a great start to the studio—but to have found a group of such like-minded partners who believe like we do that games serve fundamental human needs; who support our goal of getting the game in players’ hands quickly and developing the game with them; and most importantly, who understand that we are in this for the long-term. NetEase and our co-investors are the ideal group of partners to help us bring the company’s vision to life,” said Joe Tung, CEO and Founder of Theorycraft Games.  

Based out of Seattle and Los Angeles, Theorycraft Games is on a mission to create deep games that give everyone the chance to connect, to compete, and to be infinitely delighted by stories that place players directly in the center. Theorycraft plans to meet players right where they are, regardless of what platform they play on, where they live, or how much money they can spend. 

The game studio is building a high-performance, talent-dense team of the world’s best game developers who share Theorycraft’s obsession of putting players at the center of everything they do. 

For more information about Theorycraft Games and how you can be involved in its growth, please view available positions on its website at http://www.theorycraftgames.com/careers.

AYO.NEWS says:

Over the past few months we’ve seen a LOT of money plowed into video game developers, but Theorycraft stands out due to the sheer weight of talent it has from the get go – not to mention the almost $40M in the bank! While nothing is really known about the game it has planned at this point, we’re sure the team has something pretty special in mind, and they certainly have the talent and resources to make it happen. 

Staying with BITKRAFT, one of Theorycraft’s investors, just last week the firm announced the formation of a strategic advisory board including executives from Snapchat, Amazon Web Services, ESL, and Survios.