London and Luxembourg-based Hiro Capital, an entrepreneur-led tech venture capital fund focused on video games, Metaverse technologies, creator platforms, and gamified fitness, announced on Monday that it has launched Hiro Capital II, a €300M fund.
The firm’s fund I was launched in 2019 at €115M and has made 21 investments over two and a half years. Some of those investments include emerging games studios Polyarc, Keen, Snowprint, Flavourworks, and Happy Volcano, and gamified fitness and creator platforms such as FitXR, Zwift, FRVR, Frameplay, LIV, and Loco.
In Jan 2022, Hiro Capital I also became the lead sponsor in a new acquisition vehicle focused on the video gaming and Metaverse sectors. Hiro Metaverse Acquisitions 1 began trading on the LSE on February 7, 2022, only the second-ever SPAC to list in London. Hiro MA1 raised £115M (approx €137.66M) to target games and Metaverse acquisitions in the $600M – $2.25B range (nearly €536.56M – €2B).
What to expect from the new fund?
According to Hiro Capital, the new fund will back emerging gaming and Metaverse innovators at Seed, Series A, and Series B stage across the UK, Europe, and North America (and selectively in the rest of the world). Hiro II will make its first investment in April.
Hiro’s founding partner Luke Alvarez says, “In 2022 we are at a pivotal moment in the very early phases of the Metaverse, VR, AR and Web3 – these revolutions will take at least a decade and much of the creativity and technology innovation will start in Games. As a team, we have the experience and networks to support the incredible talent that we find across Europe, the UK and beyond. Our new fund gives us more firepower to find and develop emerging stars and level them up to global scale.”
With Hiro Capital I, Hiro Capital II and Hiro MA1, Hiro’s total AUM is $650M (approx €581.33M), entirely focused on games and Metaverse innovators in the UK, Europe, and beyond.
“Investors in the Future”
Founded by Alvarez Luke, Freeman Cherry and Sir Ian Livingstone, Hiro Capital is a technology venture capital fund that invests in the UK, US, and European innovators in games, metaverse technology, esports, and digital fitness.
Hiro’s name was inspired by Hiro Protagonist, a lead character in Neil Stephenson’s Snowcrash, a hacker-gamer who codes the Metaverse and saves the world against the odds.
In a statement, the company says, “We invest both in front-end content creators in games, esports and digital sports, and in deep tech metaverse applications of cloud, mobile, streaming, big data, AI, wearables, AR, and VR technologies.”
“We back experienced entrepreneurial teams, building innovative technologies and content with a strongly differentiated proposition and with the scaling opportunity to become very large. We are games and Metaverse investors who are also games and Metaverse entrepreneurs. We are entrepreneurs who back entrepreneurs,” the statement adds.
Founding partners with deep knowledge of gaming
The three Hiro founding partners have co-founded startups generating billions of value in exits, have completed five public IPOs and have scaled six more than $500M-sized games companies.
Hiro Managing General Partner, Luke Alvarez, founded Inspired Entertainment, a more than $600M EV Nasdaq-listed Virtual Sports games technology leader. He is also co-founder of Sknups – a Web3 games skin platform – and was a founding director of The Cloud Network, an early public access cloud platform backed by Accel and acquired by Sky.
Hiro General Partner, Cherry Freeman, co-founded the global community and e-commerce brand LoveCrafts and has spent 10 years working and angel investing in venture-backed tech companies including Elvie, New Voice Media, and Mimecast (currently being acquired for $5.8B).
Sir Ian Livingstone, who was formally knighted by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the videogames industry, is the co-founder and former chairman of Eidos plc (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), co-founder of Games Workshop (Warhammer) and co-author of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series.
Sir Ian was also an early investor and chairman of Playdemic (sold to EA for $1.4B in 2021), Tonic Games (sold to Epic in 2021) and Sumo plc (sold to Tencent for $1.3B in 2022). He is also the founder of the Livingstone Academy, a creative, games and compsci focused UK Academy school.
01
Dutch at Slush 2024: Meet the four 4TU startups who are fundraising at the world’s most founder-focused event