Seattle, WA — Neon Machine, the innovative game studio headquartered in Seattle, has secured a substantial $20 million in Series A funding, as officially announced by the company on Wednesday.
The funding round was spearheaded by Polychain Capital, with prominent participation from Griffin Gaming Partners, Brevan Howard Digital, Franklin Templeton, IOSG Ventures, and Tess Ventures.
The injection of these funds marks a pivotal moment for Neon Machine as it gears up for the upcoming release of “Shrapnel,” a cutting-edge first-person shooter. The game is set to launch in an early-access version this December, with a full-scale release planned for 2024. Neon Machine’s CEO, Mark Long, noted in a statement that the company’s current Shrapnel team comprises over 70 talented employees.
Long shared his vision, stating, “We had a collective dream to break the mold of the traditional game development cycle and design a blockbuster-quality shooter where players truly own and create game assets.”
“Shrapnel” is set in a sci-fi world of extraction warfare, offering players an immersive gaming experience. Notably, a substantial portion of in-game content, including weapon parts, weapons, and cosmetics, will be made available as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) on Shrapnel’s Avalanche subnet. This subnet operates within a private crypto network built on Avalanche, and in April, Shrapnel introduced its own ERC-20 token, SHRAP, on this network.
The game, which will be free to play, promises both solo and team-based gameplay options. What sets Shrapnel apart is its robust emphasis on user-generated content (UGC). Gamers will have the unique opportunity to create their own in-game items using Shrapnel’s innovative technology, and these creations can subsequently be minted as NFTs.
Polychain Capital Partner Josh Rosenthal expressed his enthusiasm, saying, “It’s exciting to witness the team at Shrapnel continue to propel forward towards gameplay while pushing the boundaries of player experience and ownership through blockchain technology.”
Jocy Lin, Founding Partner of IOSG Ventures, also highlighted their excitement, stating, “As a crypto-native fund, we’re immensely excited about Shrapnel’s potential in leveraging blockchain to redefine the traditional extraction gameplay.”
Neon Machine initially emerged as a part of HBO Interactive and has since evolved into an independent studio. Their journey includes a seed funding round that raised $10.5 million in 2021, the release of comic books, and the launch of a PFP (Profile Picture) NFT collection last year.
With this recent Series A funding, Neon Machine has now secured a total of $37.5 million from its seed funding, Series A, and private token sale rounds. The studio’s commitment to innovation and groundbreaking gameplay experiences continues to fuel its success in the gaming industry.