Bitkraft Ventures is investing $275 million in a new venture capital fund to support early-stage gaming, aiming to manage $1 billion in assets.
Bitkraft Ventures is putting $275 million into a new venture capital fund to back early-stage companies in the gaming and interactive media industries. The firm announced that it will be managing $1 billion in assets after the fund closes.
Bitkraft, one of the most active venture funds in the Web3 gaming market, backed the team behind the popular blockchain game Gods Unchained, Immutable.
As previously reported by VentureBeat, Bitkraft’s founding general partner, Jens Hilgers, stated that the firm’s conviction toward investing in Web3 gaming remains unchanged.
Hilgers notes that Web3, the underlying technology that aims to create a digital-first society and facilitate the ownership of digital assets, “is advancing quickly, with gains in things such as transaction speed and lower fees.”
According to Hilgers, the apparent increase in game sector layoffs can be attributed to a market correction following companies’ overhiring during the pandemic. The tech companies that had their own wave of layoffs are not that different, he remarked.
While Hilgers agrees that AI’s growing popularity in the gaming and entertainment industries will shape the future of the sector, he acknowledges that integrating AI into production to streamline development is no easy feat.
According to Hilgers, AI can streamline game manufacturing, which in turn reduces the capital needed to create new games and speeds up their time to market. Another possible advantage to the business is its scalability, which he says can help teams iterate faster and reduce risk.
Additionally, he brought attention to Bitkraft’s portfolio company, Inworld AI, which aims to revolutionize player-game interactions through the use of AI-powered dynamic character or map development.
His point was that there was a group of folks who were utilizing AI to create novel experiences rather than only improving efficiency or speed.