There is a new early—stage gaming venture fund – Patron. It was founded by people from Riot Games and Andreessen Horowitz. Now the fund has $90 million at its disposal, which it will invest both in the games themselves and in related technologies.
The foundation was headed by the former head of the esports direction of Riot Games Jason Yeh (Jason Yeh) and former partner Andreessen Horowitz Brian Cho (Brian Cho). Over 100 people have become partners of the Patron Foundation, including the CEO of Unity, as well as the founders of Twitch and Riot Games.
Patron is going to invest in the so—called “gaming spectrum” – in all types of games and sectors like fitness, education and finance. The founders of the foundation believe that these sectors have a lot in common with games and in the future they will unite into a kind of Internet metaverse or Web 3.0.
“The idea of the intersection of games with consumer applications is a real delight for us,” Cho said in an interview with VentureBeat. “Great companies like Duolingo, Robin Hood, Strava and Zwift have been created in these segments.”
“Now is the right time to create a gaming company,” Ye added. “With Web 3.0 and the gaming spectrum, the video game industry will only grow.”
Although Patron’s main office is located in Los Angeles, the fund intends to conclude at least half of the transactions outside the United States. The fund’s owners consider Southeast Asia to be one of the most interesting markets. In total, Patron plans to conduct about 25 transactions — four companies have already agreed on seed investments, but their names are not specified.
Startups will be able to calculate an amount ranging from $1 million to $4 million. In return, Patron will receive a “large share” in the companies.
You can learn more about the foundation here.