Gaming platform Overwolf closes a $52.5m funding round

By Emmanuel Legrand

Video gaming Overwolf, which allows creators to distribute and monetise in-game apps, has raised $52.5 million in a round led by Griffin Gaming Partners and Insight Partners. Other investors in the round include Ubisoft, Warner Music Group, former Quibi CEO Meg Whitman and Gen.G co-founder Kevin Chou. 

  The company said it would use the funds to invest in services for creators and provide opportunities to the in-game creator community. Co-founder and CEO Uri Marchand said in a blogpost that the investors in the new round "share our belief that the future growth of gaming lies largely in the hands of in-game creators." 

  He said the investment will allow Overwolf "to increase the manpower needed to create services for in-game creators, which is our key focus."

Pushing the boundaries

  "We are at a new user-generated content inflection point, and the strong growth of gaming lies largely in the hands of 'in-game creators,' a term we coined to categorise this new generation of in-game app creators and mod authors," said Marchand.

 Oana Ruxandra, Executive VP of Business Development and Chief Digital Officer at Warner Music Group, said the investment is part of the company's experimenttation in trying to find "new opportunities to serve our artists and music fans around the world." 

  She added: "We're excited to invest in a likeminded company like Overwolf who is pushing the boundaries on what’s possible in gaming, and we look forward to exploring more ways in which our worlds can intersect."

A new generation of UGC content  

  "Similar to how developers use Unity to build a game, we see Overwolf as the framework for everything UGC related to games," said Griffin Gaming co-founder and LionTree managing director Nick Tuosto. "Services like Overwolf set the stage for the industry to see a new generation of user-generated content and we are excited to invest in the leading company moving this space forward." 

  Tel Aviv-based Overwolf has 18 million monthly active users and provides a platform for over 30,000 video games creators. Marchand said that in 2020 the platform paid out $10 million to in-game creators, with top creators bringing in more than $100,000 a month. 

  "While the numbers are impressive, I remind myself everyday that behind every number is a creator who deserves to be recognized for his or her contributions to the industry," wrote Marchard.

A service platform

  Overwolf is launching CurseForge Core, currently in beta format, a User Generated Content (UGC) as a service platform for game developers. "CurseForge Core provides an SDK for game developers that integrates into the game itself and functions as a gateway for users to discover and install mods in-game, across all platforms and storefronts," wrote Marchand. 

  "By offering CurseForge Core, we are accelerating the community-created content movement by enabling publishers to easily integrate mods safely and seamlessly into their existing and new games."