WarDucks, the team behind the Sneaky Bears franchise, has successfully raised €1.3 million (USD 1.5 million) in seed funding. Venture capital fund Suir Valley Ventures led the round, joined by the state agency Enterprise Ireland as well as private investors.
Based in Dublin, WarDucks released Sneaky Bears for PlayStation VR and Oculus Rift last month. A lightweight version of the game was previously published on the GearVR and Google Play stores. According to the developer’s website, HTC Vive support is coming within a few weeks. A tie-in game, Sneaky Bears Roller Coaster, reached the number two spot on the the GearVR store. Before entering the VR market, WarDucks created the social and mobile title, Global Agents.
WarDucks founder Nikki Lannen commented on the investment in her company, “Our Sneaky Bears brand has already performed extremely well on mobile VR platforms, however our move now to more sophisticated hardware, including PlayStation, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive marks an important step for WarDucks. I am delighted that Suir Valley recognizes our potential in the expanding virtual reality space and is supporting our next phase of growth through this investment, together with Enterprise Ireland and other private investors”
Suir Valley Ventures Managing Partner Barry Downes said, “VR is an area of enormous opportunity and potential, and we remain keen to increase our exposure to this market and become a leading investor in the expanding industry. We see Dublin based WarDucks as a great example of the type of games studio that is going to be hugely successful in the VR industry and are looking forward to working with Nikki and her team to support them grow the company rapidly and launch unique products worldwide.”
Suir Valley Ventures expects the VR market to grow to over $35 billion by 2022, and said it “is eager to increase its exposure to this burgeoning industry.”
