Manticore Games, a US-based games platform developer, has raised $15m from a consortium led by peer Epic Games.
Adam Sussman, president at Epic Games, which operates Fortnite, one of the world’s largest games with over 350 million accounts, and is itself backed by Tencent, said: “The industry is ultimately headed to games becoming more like open platforms where creators can build their own worlds. Built in [Epic’s] Unreal Engine, [Manticore’s] Core [platform] exemplifies this future and goes one step further by providing the environment for anybody to create great multiplayer games, and a metaverse playground where players discover endless entertainment.”
Manticore also announced an early $1m Creator Payouts Pilot Program and through its Dungeons & Dragons Design-A-Dungeon Contest, Core enabled more than 150 games to be released.
In September 2019, Manticore Games secured $30m in a series B round that included Arrive, entertainment and talent services provider Roc Nation’s investment unit.
The round included venture capital firm Sapphire Ventures’ corporate-backed Sapphire Sport fund, as well as fellow VC firms Benchmark, Correlation Ventures, M Ventures and Tuesday Capital, esports-focused VC fund Bitkraft Esports Ventures and early-stage fund SV Angel.
Benchmark had previously led Manticore’s $15m series A round in December 2017, investing together with Bitkraft Esports Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Tuesday Capital (then known as CrunchFund), SV Angel and media brand Macro Ventures, an affiliate of M Ventures.
