Ares Interactive, a game developer and publisher, has raised $70 million to build cross-platform, next-generation free-to-play games.
General Catalyst led the Series A round, with participation from founder and executive chairman Niccolo de Masi, the former CEO of Glu Mobile, which Electronic Arts bought for $2.4 billion in 2021. The president is Mike DeLaet, formerly of Mattel’s gaming division.
The round represents one of the largest early-stage investments in a game company in recent years and will support Austin, Texas-based Ares Interactive’s vision to build a next-generation, cross-platform free-to-play game company.
Anchored by its studios 7th Inning (San Francisco) and Swift Games (Berlin), Ares pairs veteran game-making expertise with AI-enabled development, marketing, and live-ops workflows. This will allow their teams to iterate faster, scale content efficiently, and respond to player feedback in real time.
Ares Interactive is supported by a seasoned leadership team and an advisory board spanning platforms, publishing, and free-to-play, including Matt Fischer (former VP, Head of Worldwide App Store, Apple), Kent Wakeford (former COO, Kabam), Chris Akhavan (former CRO, Glu), and Andrew Stalbow (former CEO, Seriously Digital).
“This round validates our vision, our approach, and the team behind it,” said DeLaet. “Ares Interactive brings together rare operating experience and the discipline to build for the long term, as our leadership team has a long history of developing, scaling, and operating hit free-to-play games for some of the most successful publishers in the industry.”
He added, “In a market where many companies are pulling back, this financing gives us the ability to lean in, grow thoughtfully with exceptional partners, and invest in building games we have always wanted to make, creating experiences and communities that will keep players coming back for years to come.”
“We believe Ares Interactive is uniquely positioned to build enduring hit gaming franchises by leveraging the power of AI workflows,” said Erin Schaefer, COO at General Catalyst, in a statement. “The team combines deep operational experience with a clear creative vision and a disciplined, long-term approach to game development. From our first conversations, it was clear they are building with players at the center, and we’re excited to support them as they scale.”
Ares Interactive is already operating successful live games, led by Heroes vs Hordes, the company’s flagship title, which has surpassed 13 million installs to date. The ultimate survival roguelike RPG has earned strong player ratings and reviews, demonstrating Ares’ focus on polish, fun-first design, and excellence in live operations.
Next up, Ares will launch Baseball Hits 26, a game designed by baseball fans for baseball fans, featuring officially licensed professional baseball players. Additional game announcements are planned for 2026.
“We’re a mobile first company, but the baseball game will come out on mobile only due to licensing restrictions, and the other game will be full cross platform,” DeLaet said. “So it should come out to mobile, Steam, Epic Games Store. It’s to be determined if we bring it to console because free-to-play games are a little hit and miss on console.”
Origins
Demasi started the company in 2024 and closed initial funding in May 2024. The team quietly acquired Swift Games in Berlin, Germany and DeLaet joined in August 2024 as chief strategy officer.
Demasi was on the boards of multiple public companies and he decided to take the CEO job at IonQ, a public quantum computing company. After that, in February 2025, DeLaet, who knew Demasi from his own days at Glu, took over the company. Then he started building out the team with advisers and more.
DeLaet said Demasi remains engaged in Ares Interactive and they talk a few times a week. Ares Interactive is a privately held, next-generation, cross-platform free-to-play game developer and publisher with studios in San Francisco (7th Inning) and Berlin (Swift Games).
Built by veteran leaders from some of the most respected names in interactive entertainment, the company brings deep experience shipping, scaling, and operating hit free-to-play games.
“We’re free to play cross platform gaming company. We’re leveraging some next-generation technology to help us accelerate things much faster than a traditional gaming company,” said DeLaet, in an interview with GamesBeat. “Ares has really assembled a team of some of the best minds in free to play to build the company.”
Many of the employees previously worked at Kabam, Glu Mobile and Scopely.
“We really tried to pick the best of the best folks to come and help us build this company,” said DeLaet.
The company acquired a small team of developers in San Francisco, and that team will announce the baseball game soon. DeLaet said the company will likely look to acquire more game studios around the world with a focus on free-to-play gaming.
A broad focus
DeLaet said, “We will be tackling all genres. So we want to have games for everybody, whether it’s casual or all the way through hardcore games. And we’ll do a mix of original IP and licensed IP, so a little bit of everything.”
DeLaet credited Demasi, the founder and chairman, for raising the large round of funding.
“Everything he touches turns to gold,” he said. “I’ve learned time and time again not to bet against him.”
One good thing about having General Catalyst as an investor is possible access to its new user acquisition fund to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars in growth financing to game companies.
The team has about 50 people now.
“We’re going to continue building upon that and be very picky about studios we acquire,” DeLaet said. “First and foremost, we want to make sure they’re a great culture fit. One of the big tenets here in the business is our really smart, humble, but hard working people. We don’t have a lot of room for egos and politics in the company. We just want to get stuff done and build amazing games that our fans love.”
Making games with AI
Regarding its special sauce, Ares isn’t saying so much yet.
“We’re not publicly talking a lot about AI, but we are an AI gaming company. Ares Interactive, if it’s abbreviated, is AI. And that was very intentional,” he said.
But the company isn’t necessarily focused on turning consumers into game makers. Rather, it sees AI as a tool that is much like a search engine, DeLaet said.
“Like Google in the early 2000s, you can use a search engine for answers, or you can go the old-fashioned way and try to spend a day or a week or a month trying to figure out the problem,” he said. “We’re looking at AI the same way. How do we use AI tooling to learn faster? How do we get way more productivity per person than a normal gaming company, and we’re doing it with AI in mind from day one.”
He noted that people are worried about getting laid off because of AI. But he said, “We’re looking at it as how we become way more profitable per person than any other gaming company in history. So that’s how we tend to think about it, and things like user-acquisition campaigns. How do we optimize those campaigns and creative 24/7 365, without requiring a human to be switching the knobs every single second, right?”
He said that the company will have smart humans at the wheel directing the AI on what to do and how to do it, as the company is a very data-centric organization.
A focus on fun
“But first and foremost, we just want amazing fun games, right? Because I think a lot of gaming companies have gotten away from that. Fun games that people want to play every day, and at the center, that’s what we’re doing. That’s what matters more than anything.”
Roughly 80% of Ares Interactive’s games will be made in-house with the teams of game developers, and some outsourcing firms will be used when needed.
“We’re going to go after games that” will engage players, said DeLaet. “We’re taking some big swings out the game with titles like the baseball game. We want to be running a real good, operational, highly profitable business, so we continue growing year after year, not going through these ebbs and flows,” he said.”