DELAWARE, September 23, 2024 – Darkbright Studios Inc. (”Darkbright”) has closed an oversubscribed $6M Seed round led by BITKRAFT Ventures to build the next generation of accessible and engaging midcore titles starting with Smolbound, a refreshing new take on the life sim RPG genre. Other investors in the round included Play Ventures, Anthos Capital, King River Capital, Rockaway X, Zentry, Caballeros Capital, Gam3Girl Ventures, and Offchain Labs.
Darkbright is a studio originally incubated by Treasure DAO (”Treasure”) and founded by game industry veterans. The team hails from companies such as PopCap, ArenaNet, Phoenix Labs, Big Fish Games, and Bain & Co, who have built and scaled titles like Plants vs Zombies 2, Guild Wars, Party Animals, and Evermerge. With over $3B in game revenues of prior titles and no sunset titles, the team is excited to bring new experiences that will delight players for years to come.
The studio’s first title, Smolbound, is a quirky marriage of Animal Crossing and Raft, with endearing, everchanging environments; interactive characters; and elements of hero collection RPGs, all packaged in an accessible fantasy wrapper. Smolbound capitalizes on player creativity and adventure with a robust UGC ecosystem and extensive live ops to foster a memorable world of endless experiences. Player creations truly shape the world thanks to a seamless web3 integration that makes content ownership accessible and intuitive. The studio is primed to redefine standards in live ops and sim gaming, and has seen strong early traction with 1.8M+ trailer views, 200K+ email signups, and 70K+ Discord users after less than a month since trailer launch.
“Smolbound addresses a massive and secularly growing audience of gamers seeking comfort over competition via breathing new life into the proven genre of cozy life sims,” said Jonathan Huang, Principal at BITKRAFT Ventures. “We have been impressed with the co-founders’ synergistic balance of grounded execution with creative prowess, and are excited to back them in their journey to reinvent the genre.”
Darkbright was incubated by Treasure, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that bootstrapped the studio through a proposal to its community. Treasure, focused on building a “decentralized game console” for developers and players, provides a neutral base layer for gaming, challenging the traditional walled garden model of publishers. Smolbound’s IP extends from Smol Brains, a CC0-licensed IP created by the community within Treasure, originally distributed as NFTs through a free launch that fostered strong grassroots adoption.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled for Smolbound to launch as one of the marquee games on Treasure,” said Karel Vuong, Co-Founder of Treasure. “Smolbound is a next gen take on the life sim genre that marries the best of true asset ownership, player-driven economies, and gameplay enhanced through best-in-class live service. They’ve got a real shot to bring the masses to web3 through gaming.“
Smolbound will launch on the Treasure Layer-2 blockchain in 2025, and has initiated its closed playtests for 2024.
Assets for Darkbright and Smolbound can be found here.
About Darkbright
Darkbright, founded in 2023 by game industry veterans from companies like PopCap, ArenaNet, Phoenix Labs, and Big Fish Games, brings over 60 years of development experience with hit titles such as Plants vs Zombies 2, Guild Wars, and Evermerge. Their first game, Smolbound, blends the charm of Animal Crossing with the adventure of Raft, featuring dynamic environments, interactive characters, and RPG-style hero collection, all within a whimsical fantasy world. For more details, visit https://smolbound.com.
About BITKRAFT Ventures
BITKRAFT Ventures is the global early-stage investment platform for gaming, Web3, and immersive technology, with assets under management totaling over $1 billion. With a focus on Seed, Series A, and Series B investments across the spectrum of interactive media, BITKRAFT is at the forefront of the Synthetic Reality™ tech revolution, where physical and digital worlds converge. For a full list of public investments made to date, view BITKRAFT’s portfolio here.
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