Hiber Raises $2.25M Seed Round for Creative Content Platform
Massive Growth and More than 300K Games already in 2020 Lead to Bumble Ventures, SYBO, Konvoy Ventures, and GFR Fund Joining as New Investors
August 20, 2020 – Hiber AB announced the successful completion of a $2.25M financing (20M SEK) Seed round fueled by rapid growth in the platform’s audience and the number of games created on the platform. With no signs of slowing, Hiber’s user base has created over 300,000 games in 2020 as users flock to the platform. The funding round included existing investors Luminar Ventures, and Wild Sloths OY, and added Dreamcraft Ventures, SYBO, Konvoy Ventures, and GFR Fund to the company’s list of backers. Hiber is using the funds to accelerate the development of its growing platform and to make key hires across its product and technology groups. As part of the round, Mathias Gredal Nørvig, CEO of SYBO, the studio that created Subway Surfers, will also be joining Hiber’s Board of Directors.
“We had a lot of interest in the round, which gave us the opportunity to ensure we have the right investors on board at this stage,” said Michael Yngfors, CEO and Co-founder of Hiber AB. “Each of the new investors brings additional expertise and guidance to our business. With regards to GenZ, SaaS platforms, Asian Markets, not to mention the people responsible for the largest mobile game franchise ever created, we feel like we have a really deep bench of knowledge to draw upon.”
Hiber has been growing rapidly since adding a number of highly requested features to its social gaming and entertainment platform, including Multiplay, Chat with Friends, Player Homeworlds (personal game spaces), Playgrounds (public play spaces), and the ability to play and create your own shooter game. Engagement and retention are up exponentially over the past couple of months.
“We looked at Hiber’s numbers and we compared them to top properties in games and Hiber is off the charts, even while they are still building out more of the sticky core features that will drive greater retention and engagement,” said Jesper Soegaard, Founding Partner of Bumble Ventures. “We knew Hiber was a perfect mix of user-generated content, social and games.”
“We’re very excited for Hiber’s vision of making game creation and expression more open and accessible,” said Taylor Hurst, of Konvoy Ventures. “The team’s extensive experience and product strategy put them in a great position to usher in the next generation of game creators and players.”
“Joining the board of Hiber is an opportunity to be a part of something that is changing the way a generation communicates using games,” said Mathias Gredal Nørvig of SYBO. “Our goal is to help Hiber achieve all of the success possible and to support the company through this important time in its evolution.”
“Hiber’s technology is truly impressive,” said Teppei Tsutsui, managing partner and CEO of GFR Fund. “We especially like that users can create and share games easily and instantly using its browser-based technology. We look forward to seeing how the world responds to what they are doing.”
About Luminar Ventures
Luminar Ventures is one of Sweden’s leading seed-stage venture capital funds. The firm aims to provide professional seed stage financing to early stage technology companies throughout Sweden that are looking to disrupt or transform major industries with digital technologies and innovations. But Luminar Ventures provides much more than just capital. They engage with portfolio companies and actively help define, guide and support strategy, growth, teams and organizational, and operational structure, together with entrepreneurs, setting the foundation for future expansion.
www.luminarventures.com
About Bumble Ventures
Bumble Ventures is a Danish venture capital firm founded by Jesper Soegaard and Christian Kirk Rasmussen, co-founders and executives of Better Collective A/S, one of the world’s leading sports betting media groups developing iGaming communities based on user-generated content. Bumble Ventures invests in exceptional founders in the Nordics and helps them architect and execute their ideal escape velocity blueprint and land the best possible Series A round. Bumble Ventures’ first fund from 2019 now includes 15 portfolio companies, among others the ‘500 Startups’ alumni gaming startup, Gamerzclass, and the leading game development studio, Omnigame.
www.bumbleventures.com
About SYBO
SYBO is a Danish mobile games developer founded in 2010, known for the massive mobile hit Subway Surfers (co-developed and published by Kiloo). Danish animation school graduates, Sylvester Rishøj Jensen and Bodie Jahn-Mulliner founded SYBO in 2010 after winning 1st prize for best animation movie in 2009. Their short film gave birth to Subway Surfers which they further co-developed with Kiloo, a Danish games publisher. Today, the game studio is completely self-published and continues to develop regular updates for Subway Surfers. Subway Surfers topped 2019’s most downloaded mobile game in the world. Subway Surfers has been downloaded more than 3 billion times since its launch. To find out more please visit sybogames.com/
About Konvoy Ventures
Konvoy Ventures is a Denver-based venture capital fund investing in the video game space founded by Josh Chapman, Jason Chapman, and Jackson Vaughan. They’ve invested in Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A companies in North America, Europe, and Israel. Since the beginning of 2019, Konvoy Ventures has invested in 17 video game infrastructure companies through its inaugural fund.
www.konvoyventures.com
About GFR Fund
GFR Fund is a SF-based venture capital fund that works with strategic investors to give early-stage technology companies the opportunity to accelerate growth in the digital entertainment sector. To date, GFR Fund has invested in more than 40 companies, including VRChat, Wave, GameClub, Highrise, ProGuides, RTFKT, Edgegap. For more information visit www.gfrfund.com.