InvestGame & GDEV: VC Investments in Gaming AI
$1,8B investments across 264 deals have been reviewed.
InvestGame experts analyzed venture investments made between 2020 and 2024 in companies related to gaming AI. In total, 264 deals amounting to $1.8 billion were analyzed.
119 deals and $1.2 billion were directed toward AI tools for content creation. This includes startups that help create assets, game worlds, NPCs, and dialogues.
$0.4 billion was invested in infrastructure projects. 72 investments were made in AI toolkits that enable automated testing, increase development efficiency, and improve analysis or management of services.
Finally, 73 deals totaling $0.2 billion were for other AI tools. This category includes everything related to marketing, community management, monetization, and so on.
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Stability.ai ($101M), Parametrix.ai ($100M), and Pika ($80M) are the leaders in terms of funds raised. Inworld is also among the leaders in total investment.
Andreessen Horowitz (20 deals totaling $233 million) and Bitkraft (12 deals totaling $177 million) are the most active VC funds for the period in question. However, Lightspeed invested the most - $350 million across 6 deals.
The total number of deals in the gaming segment has been growing since 2020. However, I wouldn’t call this growth explosive.
In terms of total deal volume, 2024 was a record year ($602 million). Investments in AI tools for content production show steady growth.
In 2024, 65% of all investments in infrastructure technologies for games were related to AI. This share has been increasing since 2020.
At the same time, investment volume in infrastructure projects decreased in 2023–2024.
The overwhelming majority of AI startups raised less than $5 million.
Of all the deals considered, only 10 (4.69% of the total) were late-stage. This is normal, as AI technologies are still in the early stages of development.