A new fund is emerging on the tiny Russian venture scene. With $50 million in capital, ‘The Games Fund’ is the brainchild of Maria Kochmola and Ilya Eremeev, two former executives from My Games Venture Capital (MGVC), Forbes Russia reports.
Former Riot Games CTO Sergey Titov, alongside ex-top managers from GEM Capital, are also part of the management team. Viktor Orlovski (Fort Ross Ventures), Igor Ryabenky (Altair Capital), Mike Vorhaus (Vorhaus Advisors) and Ilya Karpinsky (MGVC) have been enrolled as advisors.
The fund was backed by Lev Leviev (co-founder of VKontakte and founder of the LVL1 fund), the founders of gaming companies Plarium and Deus Craft, as well as Aream, a London-based investment bank.
“Initially, we planned to raise a $30 million fund, but we underestimated the interest. Now we are close to raising $50 million and are still ready to accept new investors, aiming to close the fundraising by the end of the summer, “ Forbes Russia quoted Kochmola as saying.
The Games Fund will focus on startups from Eastern Europe, invest up to $2 million in pre-seed and Round A startups — and up to $5 million at later stages. The fund has already put $500,000 in Belarusian mobile game studio Purple Games, according to Forbes Russia.
Update Aug. 12, 2021: As reported by Rusven, The Games Fund attracted $17 million from two limited partners: Scopely, a US-based global leader in interactive entertainment and mobile games, and Com2us, a South Korea-based international developer and publisher of mobile games.
