Makers Fund Launches $500 Million Game-Focused VC Investment Fund

For the second time this week, a venture capital firm has announced a nine-figure fund focused on the video game sector, more evidence of the industry’s hot deal-making climate even amid broader market uncertainty.

San Francisco-based Makers Fund said Thursday it had raised $500 million in its third fund for investments in games, interactive entertainment and related technologies.

“We founded Makers with the conviction that we were entering the golden age for interactive entertainment, to change the way we all think about investing into the creative medium and how we support early stage founders,” said Makers general partner Michael Cheung in a release. “The industry has since catapulted from $100B in 2017 to $170B in 2021 as consumer adoption and engagement accelerates across all demographics and geographies. Our latest fund allows us to back founders throughout their journey from product inception through to global scaling.”

Two previous Makers funds raised a total of $460 million in 2017 and 2020 that were invested in more than 90 companies. Among the notable previous investments was GenVid, whose “massive interactive live event” Rival Peak proved to be a huge hit on Facebook two years ago. Other portfolio companies include Dream Games, Avia Games, Medal.TV, VR Chat and Parsec.

The fund plans to “continue to support a diverse group of founders and ideas with a variety of backgrounds worldwide, both at Makers and across the industry,” the VC said.

On Monday, Griffin Gaming Partners announced its second fund, with $750 million in investments focused on gaming and game-related tools and platforms.

The latest giant VC fund raises are only part of the current hot climate for dealmaking in games. Last week, game-business consultancy Digital Distribution Management issued its annual report on investments, IPOs and mergers & acquisition in the Western markets of the industry.

Totals for 2021 were bigger than the previous six years combined, fueled substantially by deals in the burgeoning blockchain-based game sector. Game-related investments jumped from 406 deals worth $13.2 billion in 2020 (both records then) to 765 deals totaling $38.5 billion, according to DDM’s year-end report.