Bad Robot Games, the video games division of J.J. Abrams and Katie McGrath’s Bad Robot, said it closed a Series B funding round of more than $40 million.
Bad Robot Games was formed in 2018 as a joint venture with Tencent, the Chinese internet and tech conglomerate, and Warner Bros. Games. To date, the company said it has banked more than $50 million total.
The new round was led by venture-capital firm Galaxy Interactive, with participation from existing investors Tencent, Horizons Ventures and Iconiq Capital. Galaxy Interactive, led by general partners Sam Englebardt and Richard Kim, has a particular investment focus on videogames and game studios, social platforms and marketplaces, and blockchain and other interactive infrastructure technologies.
“Galaxy, Horizons and Iconiq Capital comprise a veritable VC Dream Team, and we are grateful to have their continued support as we look to change the way people interact with and view video games,” said Bad Robot Games CEO Anna Sweet (pictured above), the former Valve and Oculus exec who joined the company in 2020.
With the new financing, Bad Robot Games plans to further expand its co-development team as well as its internal games studio, led by industry veteran GM Mike Booth (creator and lead designer of “Left 4 Dead”).
Sweet said the vision for Bad Robot Games is to “create games that cross platforms, cross mediums and are based on IP originating from both games and linear content.” The portfolio will span “large and indie-scale original games” for mobile, PC and console platforms.
Bad Robot Games has said its first internally developed title will be an original AAA game; it hasn’t announced expected launch date or other details. As with the company’s other projects, the game title will be developed in collaboration with Bad Robot’s film, TV and animation departments and will loop in Bad Robot’s network of artists and creatives.
Recent hires by Bad Robot Games include technical director Joe Rumsey, who worked on the original “World of Warcraft” team and was a software engineer at Facebook; and senior level designer oneil Howell, who worked in Oculus’ R&D division and on “Just Cause” 3 and 4 at Avalanche Studios.
