Participated · Seed · Sep 2024

Gamebeast offers a live-operations tooling platform that lets developers modify games without releasing a new version or interrupting a user’s ongoing session. The company launched late last year and began creating its tools in January. It says it is working with more than 40 game developers and is in talks with the U.S. military about its no-code platform. Founder Zander Brumbaugh’s self-developed Roblox games have garnered over 500 million visits and peaked at over 80,000 concurrent users, providing domain credibility. Gamebeast started with a team of four and has grown to 16 employees. The startup recently raised capital and plans to use the funds to expand product features and extend support to new platforms.

Participated · Series A · May 2024

Kudos offers an AI-powered smart wallet available as an app and browser extension that recommends the right credit card, optimizes payments, and surfaces personalized merchant offers. Its product suite includes MariaGPT (an AI card-discovery tool indexing over 3,000 cards), Dream Wallet for personalized recommendations, and Kudos Boost which delivers extra cash-back across more than 15,000 partner brands and retailers. The company grew from 1,000 beta testers to 200,000 registered users and reports annualized checkout gross merchandise volume north of $200 million. Co‑founders Tikue Anazodo and Ahmad Ismail built Kudos after working together at Google and Affirm, and the team remains lean at 14 employees. Management says the company is still in the early stages of revenue generation. Kudos plans to deploy new funding into additional AI-powered services for its smart wallet and expand MariaGPT into a general-purpose personal finance assistant and a portal that lets members book flights with points. Kudos offers a free Chrome extension and mobile wallet that holds over 3,000 cards, calculates rewards and benefits for each purchase, and recommends the optimal card — including store cards — and helps users apply. The product includes an autofill experience (including CVV) across over 1 million sites and is positioned to be ubiquitous rather than reliant on merchant integrations. The company generates revenue from affiliate fees when consumers complete card applications and from merchant cash-back rewards, which it shares with users. Founders Tikue Anazodo and Ahmad Ismail previously led product at Google and Affirm and built the product from that consumer-payments experience. Kudos has been in beta for three months, intentionally had no waitlist, and is now launching its mobile and desktop browser extension and app. The company reports 36% month-over-month growth and 90% retention, plans to add a cash-back feature across more than 12,000 merchant partners this holiday season, and will grow its team of 11 while focusing the next six months on product improvements and customer acquisition.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2023

Voicemod develops real‑time audio effects, voice‑shifting and generative AI voice tools, distributed direct‑to‑consumer and via SDKs/APIs for third‑party integration. The company has been revenue generating for years through pro versions of its products; its Voicemod for Desktop has over 40 million downloads and the company reports about 3.3 million monthly active users. Voicemod acquired Voctro Labs last year and is combining that team’s singing and voice‑conversion tech with its digital signal processing capabilities to create hybrid speech‑to‑speech and sing‑to‑sing features. Product plans include a macOS desktop launch, a mobile creation app next quarter, and a Q2 rollout of an audio watermarking system to identify AI‑generated voices. The team offers both consumer creation tools and SDKs/APIs to put voice tech into games, apps and hardware, and says it will focus on building next‑generation real‑time AI voice identity capabilities for Gen Z, gamers and creators. Voicemod builds real-time voice avatars and voice filters using a combination of AI and digital signal processing to let users alter their voice during gaming, streaming, and social sharing. The software enables persona switching, sound memes, and contextual effects (for example, adding breath effects or echo). The company says it has achieved 10 million PC downloads and is already profitable while growing quickly. Voicemod has doubled its team since January to 55 employees and emphasizes immersive audio experiences for gamers and content creators. With the new funding it plans to launch mobile apps, expand further into Asian markets, and invest in AI-based voice and speech conversion technologies to make voices more realistic. CEO and co-founder Jaime Bosch positions the product as the missing piece of voice filters for enhanced gameplay and digital expression.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2022

Odyssey Interactive is an independent game development studio founded by former Riot Games leads. Its debut title, Omega Strikers, is a free-to-play competitive 3v3 knockout striker that launched an Open Beta on PC in September 2022 and has earned positive reception from players. The studio has been operating the game as a live service, shipping three new strikers in the first month and issuing balance changes in response to feedback. Odyssey plans a full launch in February 2023 with native controls and full cross-play and cross-progression across PC, mobile devices, and consoles. The team says it will add new arenas, limited-time modes, and small-scale tournament opportunities leading into launch. The studio emphasizes its experience running live service games as a core competency. Odyssey Interactive is a Kitchener, Canada–based game studio founded by former Riot Games developers that is prototyping accessible-but-competitive mobile games. The team aims to build emotionally engaging mobile titles that create a positive cultural impact and become a "game that you live." The company has not announced a specific game and is currently testing a bundle of ideas in a prototype phase. Investors provided $6 million in funding, giving the studio runway to develop several games rather than a single project. Founders plan modest hiring—adding four to five people initially and targeting around eight to 10 by year-end, with a possible expansion to about 20 by the end of 2021. The leadership emphasizes small, fast-moving "ninja" teams and cites their Riot Games pedigree and prior work on Teamfight Tactics and League of Legends projects as core strengths.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2021

Pipeline provides an educational platform of expert-advice videos, tools, and programs to help aspiring livestreamers and video creators build sustainable careers. Founded by former pro gamer and Facebook product lead Stephen "Snoopeh" Ellis and streamer David "StoneMountain64" Steinberg, the company offers subscriptions, scholarships, and creator-focused tooling. It serves more than 50,000 streamers, including 3,000 paying subscribers, and charges $34 per month or $340 per year. Pipeline has nine employees and was previously funded by its two founders. The product has expanded from livestreaming support to video-on-demand and recently launched Verticlip, a tool to convert 16:9 videos into 9:16 clips for short-form platforms. Partners include Supercell, Corsair, Facebook, Razer, Elgato, Voicemod, and Intel. The company aims to build infrastructure and educational support for the long tail of creators so they can grow multi-platform audiences and monetize their work.