AccelByte, a backend companies platform for recreation builders, raises $60M led by SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund

AccelByte, a platform that helps recreation creators construct backend companies and instruments, has raised $60 million in Sequence B led by SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund 2, with participation from Sony Interactive Leisure and returning backers Galaxy Interactive and NetEase.

The corporate’s final funding announcement was in August 2021 for a $10 million Sequence A led by Galaxy Interactive. So far, the startup has raised a complete of $70 million. Accelbyte didn’t disclose its valuation.

AccelByte’s platform allows builders to construct, scale and function reside service video games throughout the participant expertise loop, together with foyer, mates, matchmaking, cloud development, achievements, season cross, launcher and patcher and extra.

The Seattle-headquartered startup will use the cash to boost the backend platform for recreation creators and assist the continued improvement of the instruments to function AAA-quality reside service video games at scale.

AccelByte CEO Junaili Lie, who beforehand led the backend engineering workforce at Epic Video games, based this startup in 2016. Whereas working at Epic Video games, Lie realized that nothing versatile sufficient existed to assist the hefty backend necessities for the then-nascent Epic platform his workforce had been tasked to construct. Lie informed TechCrunch that he needs to democratize recreation creation and supply impartial creators — irrespective of giant or small — the identical entry to AAA-quality instruments and platforms to create video games and multiplayer experiences.

The agency has seen sturdy traction as the sport business has skilled explosive progress in well-funded, venture-backed studios. AccelByte claims it has tripled its buyer numbers for the reason that Sequence A, and greater than 30 studios are constructing on the AccelByte platform, Lie informed TechCrunch. Its present shoppers embrace Dreamhaven, Construct A Rocket Boy, 1047 Video games, KRAFTON, Deep Silver Volition, Theorycraft Video games, Treatment Leisure, Raid Base and Starbreeze Studios, amongst others, Lie famous.

“Lots of these creators have began constructing reside service video games and so they concurrently notice how tough it’s to construct a scalable backend platform from scratch. This ends in delayed ship dates, titles which have hassle scaling on launch, and a backlog of reside service options which are by no means applied in-game,” Lie mentioned in an interview. “Constructing a bespoke backend platform distracts and diverts sources away from what recreation makers actually need to spend their time on: Perfecting the core gameplay loop for his or her gamers.”

AccelByte says recreation builders can prolong particular person AccelByte platform companies, that are constructed on a microservices structure, to fulfill their distinctive recreation necessities. Lie mentioned that AccelByte has a number of microservices, together with cross-platform matchmaking, participant development, entitlements and catalogs, season passes and extra. Its platform is game-engine agnostic, with Unreal and Unity software program improvement kits (SDKs) obtainable and helps cross-platform play throughout PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Swap, iOS and Android.

“In contrast to opponents PlayFab and GameSparks, AccelByte is a single-tenant providing the place every buyer is provisioned in a devoted atmosphere that’s massively scalable to hundreds of thousands of gamers. Because of this each microservice is totally customizable, extensible, and [if need be] forkable to fulfill the distinctive necessities of that exact recreation studio,” Lie mentioned.

In 2018, Microsoft acquired PlayFab and Amazon acquired GameSparks to bolster their recreation infrastructure platform enterprise.

AccelByte has greater than 300 workers globally, together with in Canada, Indonesia and China.

“As video games develop into extra complicated with the rise of cross-platform multiplayer and reside companies, there’s an elevated want for scalable and environment friendly infrastructure to attenuate time to market,” mentioned Robert Kaplan, funding director at SoftBank Funding Advisers. “We consider AccelByte has constructed a number one backend resolution for the gaming business, giving builders the platform and instruments to scale video games sooner, simpler and cheaper.”

“Constructing huge and intensive on-line worlds requires important technical infrastructure to make sure creators can obtain their imaginative and prescient,” mentioned Lin Tao, SVP, finance, company improvement and technique at Sony Interactive Leisure.