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Netspeak Games has raised $12 million to launch its first mobile game, a cute social title called Sunshine Days.
Netspeak was founded in 2019 to build worlds where people want to spend time. It focuses on creating social spaces where friendship, collaboration and support are the foundations of coexistence. Sunshine Days is being built for iOS and Android.
Lakestar and Project A led the round, with Makers Fund participating and additional support
from notable game leaders including Hilmar Veigar Pétursson (CCP), Phil Mansel (Jagex), and Catherine Chew (Kepler Interactive).
Sunshine Days is the company’s first title and represents the company’s mission. With a multiplayer and mobile first focus, Netspeak has been working on this first title since mid-2020.
All the founders met at Unlikely and had a lot of fun working together on innovative technology.
“We work closely with most of the major multiplayer game studios and learned a lot about the issues they face, both technically and culturally,” said Callum Brighting, CEO of Netspeak Games, in an email to GamesBeat. “Having seen the same issues come up over and over again, we decided it was our time to implement our own solution and build a truly wonderful place to work together.”
This new round of funding brings the total raised to date by Netspeak to $16 million, including previous ones
seed investment led by Initial Capital, with participation from Makers Fund. Funding will empower
Netspeak to quickly expand your team and grow at a fast pace.
“I am excited on behalf of my entire team to be able to share this funding news today. At Netspeak we strive to overcome our industry’s obsession with the latest trend or newest technology and create games that truly express the potential of our medium, building worlds our players will want to spend time in, giving them tools to express and explore. . their identities and creating experiences they can share with friends, old and new,” said Brighting. “Building a company during a pandemic has been a challenge, but I am pleased to say that by being supportive, kind and continuing to prioritize our studio culture above all else, we are now a world-class team backed by industry-leading investors. ”
Netspeak Games said it is building a stellar team of veterans and rising stars within the games industry and beyond. The studio has brought together talent with previous experience at companies like Sony, EA, Rockstar, Payload Studios, Lockwood Publishing, Microsoft, Palantir, Sega Europe, and King.
“Netspeak Games has taken a totally different approach to the type of games it’s creating and the internal culture they’ve created to create them,” said Mika Salmi, managing partner at Lakestar, in a statement. “I am happy to support a team that is leading the way in a gaming market that can use some diversity.”
Netspeak Games is hiring for various positions. But the studio believes that great talent isn’t always a perfect fit for a job spec; so he warmly welcomes speculative inquiries from anyone looking to find a role in the games. All Netspeakers are offered remote work as standard, unlimited vacation time, enhanced salary structures for maternity, paternity and secondary caregivers, as well as independent learning days.
The company has 38 employees from 14 countries. Brighting, in an email to GamesBeat, said the team started in 2020, after about six months of unemployment during the pandemic.
“In our previous lives, we spent a great deal of time sitting down and thinking about multiplayer,” Brighting said. “We think there is less innovation in this space than there could be, due to the size of the budgets and the teams required. Multiplayer doesn’t have to be about combat, high scores, and grinding, and we believe the next big thing can only be delivered by a small, diverse team working with an agile mindset. That is the vision we are working towards.”
The title is a cross-platform social mobile game set in a peaceful, wholesome and inclusive gaming environment where each player will be drawn into their little owl adventure, full of amazing places to explore and fun activities to master,” said Brighting. “Along the way, the experience will be marked by memorable social encounters and emerging friendships.”
Asked what it was like to raise money in this economic environment, Brighting said: “Serie A was always going to be tough – finding the balance between showing good early traction and laying the groundwork for a game that we’ll make for the next one. 10 years is really complicated. Scalable technology and great workflows are hard to boast about in an industry obsessed with day 1 retention and minutes played. But the team did an excellent job, and we didn’t lose sight of our culture and pillars to do it. Project A, Lakestar and Makers funds really see the value in not only what we’ve built, but how we’ve built it.”
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