Remarkable Tech’s Post

Founders often come to me, Brian Cho and Jason Yeh to take advantage of our combined gaming and consumer expertise. Particularly focusing on how to tap into Discord’s vast and engaged user base. Today, we published a guide for start-ups on how to unlock product distribution across the platform. Check out the guide on the Patron blog linked in the comments below! Discord has become ground zero for start-ups building towards a future shaped by games. Whether it’s new ways to interact with AI, trade stocks or beta test with a community of early users, having a Discord presence is often an essential part of a start-up’s go-to-market strategy. Discord is used by ~200 million people every month. Over the next decade, we think this number will grow substantially as another billion people start playing multiplayer games and engaging in an internet that is more interactive and community driven. Building on Discord? Get in touch. #founders #discord #startups #seedstage #discordvcfunds #venturecapital

Today's the second anniversary of A16Z GAMES and (roughly) the first anniversary for A16Z GAMES SPEEDRUN. A lot's changed in the last two years! When I joined we were still investing in games from the consumer fund. We spun out our fledgling "startup" VC with six people; now we're a team over twenty strong. We cover everything from talent to marketing to creators to content to BD to publishing. We started with games studios - I invested in Theorycraft Games, The Believer Company, Azra Games 🔜 Consensus Austin, Roboto Games, Metatheory Inc., Lumi Interactive and others my first year - but we've also gone way broader. Now we have a broad portfolio of tech x games, ranging from AI, web3, AR/VR, infra tools, prosumer platforms, and gamified apps. We launched SPEEDRUN! It was a total experiment at the beginning; can we teach the principles of game design and inspire the next generation of great game founders? And now it's a real institution. Seventy plus companies, tens of millions of dollars deployed, and many startups that have grown their business and raised follow-on capital. It's a real team effort with Andrew Lee Joshua Lu Samira Behrouzan Petra Garrett and the rest of the team. Every function has scaled. Jordan Mazer and Caitlin Cooke have become LinkedIn whisperers and have directed thousands of candidates. Doug McCracken Samira Behrouzan Lester Chen have done a great job rebranding our fund, launching a YouTube, and now a substack too. Katia Ameri has turned tech week into a real institution with tens of thousands of people. So what next? Well first, we're bringing SPEEDRUN to LA, and applications close tomorrow. We want to connect the tech x games ecosystem in LA and support the burgeoning community here. And second, we raised GAMES FUND TWO. For my part, I've launched my own substack, TikTok, and continue to invest in the best B2C founders out there. If you're building a studio, UGC platform, gamified app, anime, or web3 startup, let's chat.

Excited to announce that BITKRAFT Ventures is leading Darkbright Studios $6M Seed Round alongside a roster of marquee partners to build SmolBound, the next generation cozy life sim! Short-form thoughts on BITKRAFT's excitement around the trinity of: i) Token-bootstrapped networks, unlocking ii) New paradigms in gaming UGC, in turn iii) Disrupting the massive TAM of Cozy games -------------------- Networks are killer use-cases of the Internet which accrue the greatest enterprise value: Think Facebook, TikTok, Instagram Building networks are tough: Roblox was founded in 2004 but only IPO-ed in 2021 We believe this paradigm is unlikely to hold true over the next decade as next-gen UGC platforms can and should overcome cold start problems via clever deployment of token incentives, not only to bootstrap initial user liquidity, but also drive greater creative agency, ownership, and ultimately value creation over the long term We saw this come alive during DarkBright’s pitch: Instead of using tokens to provide pure financial utility to DeFi-natives a la DeFi protocols, SmolBound will, inter alia, leverage tokens to provide gameplay utility to gaming-natives and engender what we call content network effects. Gamers will be able to use tokens to vote for the user-generated games they enjoy, this drives natural selection of high-PMF content to be produced, which in turn attracts more users in a virtuous manner This heroic endeavor requires the toughest of founders, and to that end it has been an absolute joy getting to know PurpleSnow and Spooky, whose blend of grit, intellectual horsepower, and creative prowess position them strongly to embark one of the toughest consumer startup journeys one may choose to embark on -------------------- Leveraging web3 to unlock a UGC ecosystem atop a massive market opportunity that is the Cozy Life Sim genre led by upstart mavericks constitutes a super rare Venn diagram of investment foci that we are fundamentally excited about BITKRAFT Ventures is excited to be Darkbright Studios partners from Day 1, and are heartened to be in the company of all-star investors who will help us make this dream come true Let's get SMOL and COZY together!

Business of games: 4 biggest funding rounds, partnerships, and trends from the last week (investment round-up details from March 2nd week) 1. Game development and publishing hub The Collective Ace Group has acquired mobile game maker By Aliens 2. Gamecity Hamburg to provide €400,000 for game prototypes 3. Brain Jar Games has raised $6.7 million in a seed funding round, which the studio plans to put towards its debut project Dead as Disco 4. Spatial launches Wolves Den Game Jam as a kind of Shark Tank for game startups TopTrends: InnoGames reveals staff salaries: So how do your compensations compare? #gamedevelopment #gamedesign #businessofgames

Thrilled to announce that The HL Guide for Video Games Startups has surpassed 200 downloads! 🚀 This guide was created so you can have the fundamentals in place so your business doesn’t fail before you really get going. Here are a few things you can find in our guide: ✅ Funding options ✅ Industry experts’ advice ✅ Accounting tips ✅ How to pay taxes & more! Download the Henderson Loggie Guide for Games Startups using the link below 👇 https://lnkd.in/eEMK5DrV  #GameDev #StartupTips #GamingIndustry

Great to see continued excitement and investment in Web3 Gaming. A16Z's Speedrun program is opening its 3rd round with a $750K seed investment for each of the 40 companies accepted. Although Web3 is almost inseparable from the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) movement, I believe that Games will be an even bigger driver of Web3's core concepts over the next few years. Some of the startups that make it into this program will likely be at the forefront.

Thrilled to announce that The HL Guide for Video Games Startups has surpassed 200 downloads! 🚀 This guide was created so you can have the fundamentals in place so your business doesn’t fail before you really get going. Here are a few things you can find in our guide: ✅ Funding options ✅ Industry experts’ advice ✅ Accounting tips ✅ How to pay taxes & more! Download the Henderson Loggie Guide for Games Startups using the link below 👇 https://lnkd.in/eWJMSUS7 #GameDev #StartupTips #GamingIndustry  

Deadline Dream Alert #6 - 30 Sept EOD Hello Founders, if you're building in AI/Playable Apps/Games Studios /AR/VR/Infra + Tools/UGC/Interactive Platforms/Web3 Then apply for the Jan '25 cohort for our A16Z GAMES SPEEDRUN Tech x Games 12-week accelerator. Apply yourself / tag teams you think should apply! Details below👇 - $750K Investment for each startup  - 12-week program from 01/06 to 03/21 with IRL speakers, office hours, personalized coaching, and events Andrew Chen is one of the smartest VC in the Silicon Valley. He is a General Partner for A16Z GAMES, focused on the intersection of tech and gaming — this includes AI, studios, infrastructure, and consumer apps. Do check his weekly newsletter. Dreamers, like this post to spread the word. Link in the comment Apply yourself / tag friends/teams you think should apply! Follow Hello San Francisco Startups for regular startup updates #DreamOn #SanFrancisco #AI #SaaS #Meetups #Tech #USA

Building Complx Culture from the Ground Up! The journey of Complx Culture has been a rollercoaster, to say the least! When we first envisioned a Web3 fitness app that would empower people to earn rewards for staying active, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. But the passion and dedication within our team have kept us going through every challenge. Where We Started We began with an ambitious idea—an app that would bring fitness, community, and blockchain together on the Solana ecosystem. Alongside a roadmap and vision, we knew we needed funding and resources to bring it all to life, especially to build the MVP and map creation essential for the geo-location features. The Struggles Turning an idea into reality takes more than just a dream. From understanding the technical complexities of Web3 to ensuring data integrity in move-to-earn features, we’ve faced challenges at every turn. Creating a sustainable, fair, and functional ecosystem has been a constant learning process. Real-time data management, combating potential cheating, and ensuring a smooth user experience are just a few of the technical hurdles we've faced and continue to tackle. Funding Through Merch Rather than waiting for traditional funding, we took matters into our own hands and launched a merchandise line. Every shirt sold directly supports Complx Culture's development, bringing us closer to a fully functional MVP. It’s been incredible to see people from our community step up to support this vision. It’s more than just merch—it’s a symbol of what we’re building together. Real-Time Growth Today, we’ve achieved some incredible milestones. Our Discord community is growing daily, and our gym meme content on Instagram has helped spread the word far and wide. We’re nearly at our funding goal for our developer team, and every day brings us closer to launch. The journey is ongoing, but the excitement and energy from our team and community keep us motivated. Thank you to everyone who’s supported Complx Culture so far—whether through buying a shirt, joining our Discord, or simply spreading the word. The best is yet to come. #Web3 #StartupJourney #ComplxCulture #BlockchainFitness #MoveToEarn #Entrepreneurship #CommunityDriven #Solana

MMORPGs have lost their way over the past decade, but Chris Mhley and Power Proc Studios, LLC are here to change that with your help. Soul Kingdoms is a new "MMO-lite" with RPG elements that bring back the feeling that I've been missing since games like Runescape (Classic) and Ragnarok Online. MMOs these days are all about the agonizing grind or pay-to-win tactics, but now that I'm not a teenager I can't dedicate that kind of time to a single game without it taking years to get anywhere. This new game is different--it can actually fit into my adult-life schedule! Because of its "lite" nature, I can see myself getting my RPG fix in fast-paced, strategic battles without fretting about having to chop down 2893075432 trees to get to the next level. Plus, it's just flat out fun! I've been watching this game evolve since the very beginning, even having been a part of its unreleased predecessor over a decade ago. Chris's passion and ambition to putting out only the best work has never waned and Soul Kingdoms is a testament to that. If you also demand to see an evolution of the MMO space, give this game a follow, become a Patreon subscriber, and keep an eye out for updates around seeing this in Early Access!