Investor LVP announces new $80m fund for the ‘next wave of successful startups’ in Europe and North America

Early-stage games industry-focused venture capital firm, LVP, has announced a new $80 million fund for the “next wave of successful startups”.

Based in London and Berlin, LVP says its partners are “operating experts in the game ecosystem”, and have been early investors in a number of game companies, including Supercell, Unity, NaturalMotion, Playfish, Peak, Applifier, Boomlagoon and Radiant Entertainment.

Founded in 2012 by David Gardner and David Lau-Kee, LVP says its “portfolio approach goes broad across the landscape to track and preempt emergent trends and identify disruptors” and helps not just with investment but by “significant involvement, leveraging its vast network to strengthen efforts across recruitment, partnerships, fundraising and acquisitions, and facilitating sharing and networking across its portfolio”.

The company will now use its Seed Fund III “to continue its successful track record in the games sector”, helping build up both games technology and content companies from the earliest phase.

“We are incredibly proud that an LVP investment has come to signify a stamp of approval for games startups,” said David Gardner, general partner, LVP. “Our Fund III will allow us to continue to bring our deep backgrounds as game entrepreneurs and executives with large scale product and operational expertise to identify and help founders and teams with great potential. 

“While we have incredibly high standards and invest in only 1.5% of companies we evaluate, we are set apart from most VCs who wait for metrics to guide their investments because our own games careers have given us the ability to recognize patterns, trends and disruptive ideas very early on.”

“At LVP, we have built a unique platform, which brings targeted, sector-specific value to entrepreneurs on topics like leadership, distribution, organizational scaling and development, forecasting tools and models, resulting in an incredible environment for game startup entrepreneurs given our specialized and large portfolio,” Gardner added. “Our strategy is to nurture a network and community of games companies, leverage our experience and connections and hedge the hits driven nature of games by mixing game genres, platforms and a wider technology/ecosystem investment approach to ensure stronger coverage of the high growth games sector.”