Manticore Games, a US-based games platform developer, has raised $100m in its series C round from a consortium including Japan-listed conglomerate SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and Epic Games, developer of the Fortnite game.
Gaurav Kapadia’s investment firm XN led the round, with participation also coming from VC firms LVP, Benchmark, Bitkraft Opportunity Fund and Correlation Ventures.
Manticore said it would use the investment to accelerate its Core game creation and publishing tools for user-generated content (UGC) similar to how YouTube opened up video publishing online.
Core, which already offers more than 20,000 free games and a million players, will be available for early access exclusively on Epic’s games store from mid-April.
Steven Allison, general manager of Epic Games Store, said: “Epic and Manticore have a shared belief that the future of games and the metaverse will be built by a global community of creators. Core, which is powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine, provides creators with an incredibly powerful yet accessible set of tools that will help accelerate this shared vision.”
In September, Manticore raised $15m in an early close of the round from a consortium led by peer Epic Games.
Manticore also announced then 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.
