portalone 15m atari founders fund twitch
During the past year and a half of pandemic living, gaming and streaming video have been two of the top victors among pastimes. As it is ready to exit closed beta, a firm that has developed an app that combines the two entertainment types today announces a significant seed round of investment.
As it gets ready to exit private beta, PortalOne, a hybrid gaming business, announces a $15 million seed round of investment. The app will allow users to play on-demand games and watch live programmes where they may compete against special guests.
The investor’s reputation contributes to the startup’s notoriety and its funding.
Included are Atari, camera manufacturer ARRI, Founders Fund, Coatue Management (specifically Arielle Zuckerberg), Rogue Capital Partners (Alice Lloyd George’s new fund), Signia Venture Partners (via Sunny Dhillon), Seedcamp, Talis Capital, and SN Ventures from Europe. TQ Ventures is the company led by Scooter Braun and financiers Schuster Tanger and Andrew Marks.
Other investors included Xen Lategan, a former CTO and executive advisor at various companies like Hulu, Kevin Lin, a co-founder of Twitch, Mike Morhaime, a co-founder of Blizzard and Dreamhaven, Amy Morhaime, a co-founder of Dreamhaven, Marc Merrill, a co-founder of Riot Games, and Eugene Wei, a former head of video at Oculus and head of product at Hulu.
PortalOne is a hybrid of a media corporation and a tech startup. In order to create games, capture live performances, and combine the two into an experience that combines on-demand and real-time gaming and entertainment, it has spent the last three years developing a whole stack of hardware and software.
The fact that what we are doing is so difficult to achieve technically is one of the advantages of constructing first, according to co-founder and CEO Brd Anders Kasin. “How we go about it is important. It is our secret ingredient.
On the other hand, it is utilising that technology to construct a brand and platform for gaming and live events, giving itself and other parties a venue to create games and larger live experiences around them. It thinks it has accomplished something in this place that has eluded others for a long time.