Against games industry doldrums, Bitkraft Ventures raises $275M to back studios and platforms

Bitkraft Ventures — a games investor based out of Denver, Colorado, but with European founders — has raised its third fund, coming in at $275 million. The fund will make seed and Series A investments in gaming studios, and platforms to support game production. The moves comes at a time when games investments have actually declined 72% year on year, according to a recent Pitchbook report.

Founded by games industry veteran Jens Hilgers, Bitkraft has over 130 companies in its portfolio, and more than $1 billion in assets under management.

The VC is an investor in the Frost Giant studio, which Hilgers seemed particularly excited about.

“Frost Giant has set out to build a successor in the real-time strategy space. The team had previously been involved in building StarCraft and they’re now launching a game called Stormgate. It’s highly anticipated and has had great early reviews. That is a good example of the type of  games company we invest in.”

Other investments include Anzu, an in-game ad platform; Carry1st, a mobile gaming platform focused on Africa; InWorld, a social platform; Karate Combat, a martial arts league; and Immutable, the creator of the Gods Unchained crypto-based game.

He said the firm’s LP base is a mix of family offices and institutional funds, and confirmed a major global sportwear player as an LP but was not at liberty to release the name.

“The strategy we pursued with the second fund is about 30 to 35 companies, average ticket size about $4 million, 50% of the initial capital and 50% follow-on. That strategy has looked successful so far. We’re rated top decile in the latest Cambridge Associates ranking, and we’re happy with that performance,” he added.

Perhaps the best way of positioning Bitkraft is to compare it to Play Ventures in Singapore, which has raised $222.9 million across four funds but also invests across several types games platforms.