What's changed for devs seeking early investment?

gamesindustry.biz:

Brendan Sinclair

Managing Editor

Tuesday 19th April 2022

Global Top Round has been running the GTR Accelerator Program for seven years, investing in ten pre-seed companies every year since 2015 with no preference of genre or country.

The investments are relatively small. GTR gives every company it invests in a minimum valuation of $800,000 and the first investment is $40,000 (no more than 5% of the company), with an option to buy an additional 3% to 6% later on.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, GTR VP of global business development Pontus Mähler says over the years of handling the program, the team noticed a specific kind of situation coming up.

Pontus Mähler, Global Top Round

"One of the 'flaws' of our program was that sometimes we would meet teams that loved our model and were like, 'Everything you're doing is awesome, but my burn rate is $40,000,'" Mähler says. "So our money wouldn't really last them very long."

Rather than tweak the existing Accelerator Program, GTR parent company GXC raised almost $14 million in Series A funding to help establish the GTR Seed Program, which offers between $150,000 and $300,000 in seed funding for start-ups that are a little further along than the ones accepted into the Accelerator Program.

GTR is running the Seed Program year-round, and is hoping to back five companies a year in addition to the ten that can be accepted each year into the Accelerator Program.

The gaming investment scene has changed considerably in recent years, and the pandemic in particular has seen an uptick in the amount of funding available for start-ups in the gaming space. But even with that money floating around, Mähler says the accelerator is still filling an acute need in the industry.

"Nobody's willing to give