Emergent bags $12.5m new funding
Middleware company set to announce new technology at GDC in March
Emergent Game Technologies has announced that it has secured an additional USD 12.5 million from investors in a new round of funding.
The cash will allow the company to bring a new technology to market, which it believes will greatly speed up the development process, and will be unveiled at GDC in March.
"Though the videogame industry is weathering the worldwide liquidity crisis better than most, increased financial pressures are intensifying the many difficulties the industry is facing such as bloated budgets, increased complexity of core technology and changing consumer expectations," said Geoffrey Selzer, CEO of Emergent.
"We have invested enormous development time in our new product, layered on top of our rock solid, stable Gamebryo technology. This new product will massively speed up the development of games and other 3D interactive experiences."
The funding round was led by Hopewell Ventures, with other investors including Worldview Technology Partners, Jerusalem Venture Partners, Walker Ventures and Adena Ventures.
"We are looking very carefully at every investment we make these days," said Thomas Parkinson, partner at Hopewell Ventures. "The market for middleware keeps expanding, as innovation and consumer expectations grow. Everyone is looking for ways to minimize risk without compromising quality.
"Emergent offers solutions that scale across game budgets, genres and platforms. Further, we believe the new technology Emergent plans to release shortly will establish the company as the leader in the middleware industry."
Emergent's flagship product, Gamebryo, is designed for use on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC platforms, and has recently been used in Civilization Revolution and Warhammer Online.