Evan Richter (left) and Eric Garland of Smash Ventures.
Evan Richter (left) and Eric Garland of Smash Ventures.
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Why Smash Ventures bet part of its $75 million fund on Epic Games

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 19 min

Two years after it put some money into Epic Games in 2018, Smash Ventures finally came out of hiding with its $75 million fund for media, entertainment, and games.

Smash Ventures founders are Eric Garland and Evan Richter. Garland formerly led venture investments for Disney, after he sold his startup BigChampagne to Live Nation in 2011. Richter was a former part of Disney’s corporate strategy and business development team, and he was also an investor at Insight Partners. They were both accustomed to working behind the scenes.

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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.