Michael Carter (left) is CEO of Playco and Justin Waldron is cofounder.
Michael Carter (left) is CEO of Playco and Justin is cofounder.
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Playco raises $100 million at $1 billion valuation for instant games across platforms

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 7 min

Meet one of gaming’s newest unicorns. Playco has raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation for instant games over a wide variety of platforms.

That’s a lofty valuation for a company making a web browser gaming engine for instant games that are playable on a web link and can run on any platform. The funding comes as the industry is discussing a “post-app store” world, and instant games may be an ideal vessel for delivering games with the potential to reach billions of players.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.