Nascent studio Sprocket Games announced today it has raised $5 million in funding. The company, which was founded by veterans of Riot Games, Google, Blizzard, Obsidian, and CCP Games, plans to use this money to build its team.
Josiah Kiehl, Jo Graylock, Nicolas Tittley, and Reina Sweet founded Sprocket this year. They hope to create a studio that supports a diverse, inclusive workforce with extensive benefits like healthcare. The developers are also working on the studio’s first game, which they call “a cross-platform, social adventure game.”
Bitkraft Ventures led the round, with 1Up Ventures, Gaingels, and Substrate participating. Jasper Brand, principal at Bitkraft, said of the studio, “Fun, engaging adventures with friends — both new and old — are at the center of many games we all play and love today. Josiah, Jo, Nick, and Reina struck us as an amazing leadership team from day one: Not only do they have a captivating vision for what those shared adventures could look like — but also a rare track record across game design and infrastructure to bring their ideas to life.”
Josiah Kiehl, Sprocket’s CEO, said in a statement, “Sprocket Games is a developer-focused studio created to set a new standard for how we care for and empower game developers, both culturally and technologically. Our goal is to give devs the creative space they need to take risks and make truly innovative and amazing games. Many top-tier game developers in the industry are under-supported, marginalized, and under-appreciated. Sprocket will provide developers opportunities they weren’t afforded at previous studios, creating a better, safer environment that serves as a stable platform for moonshot after moonshot.”