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A new Canadian games studio was launched today by four Riot Games veterans. The new studio is targeting the mobile games space with competitive games for the next-generation of gamers.
“With the next generation having grown up with phones being their primary gaming platform – we believe they deserve the same experiences that we had, and should have games purpose built for them that can become a core part of their lives,” said the team in a statement.
The new studio is lead by four founders: Richard Henkel – CEO, Dax Andrus – President, David Capurro – CCO, Eric Lawless – CTO. Between them they have broad experience from Riot Games across League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, as product leads and design leads, with Lawless also having worked in senior roles at Netflix.
“With the next generation having grown up with phones being their primary gaming platform – we believe they deserve the same experiences that we had”
“Throughout our own gaming careers, we’ve all gravitated towards games with a competitive angle, games that gave us goals to shoot for, and games that we could play again, and again, and again. We’re talking about games like Age of Empires, Starcraft, CS:GO, WoW, Dota, and of course – League of Legends… While these games span across genres and decades, they all have something important in common – they created communities that helped us feel like we were part of something bigger than just a game.“
The $6m of funding came from Andreessen Horowitz, Golden Ventures, A16z Cultural Leadership Fund, and from several angel investors including Eros Resmini (Discord CMO), Kevin Lin (Twitch Cofounder), Steve Chen (YouTube Cofounder), and Paul Della Bitta (Ex Blizzard VP).
The funding will let the team build a studio in canada, with several small teams and the ability to produce and launch a number of games, which will target “the middle of the gaming spectrum/audience”
