Roblox lands $92m in funding
The F2P world-building game will benefit from financing led by Meritech Capital Partners and Index Ventures
Roblox Corporation, which operates the user-generated online gaming platform geared towards kids, today announced a significant funding round worth $92 million. The financing was led by Meritech Capital Partners (which has invested in Snapchat and Facebook) and Index Ventures (investors in King and Supercell). The investment deal includes Meritech's Managing Director Craig Sherman and Index Ventures' Co-founder and Partner Neil Rimer taking observer seats on the Roblox board.
Roblox said that the latest funding comes after the company enjoyed a record-breaking year involving rebranding and expanding with a user-generated toy line. Over the last 18 months, Roblox has seen 48 million active players and 22 million user generated games. Part of the new capital will be used "to support frictionless cross-platform play across PC, Xbox, Mac, and Virtual Reality with a significant focus on mobile," according to spokespeople.
"The opportunity to bring in additional top tier investors that share our vision is very exciting," said David Baszucki, CEO of Roblox. "We're already profitable, but the additional infusion of capital helps to strengthen our balance sheet so that we can accelerate building the most social, immersive and powerful imagination platform."
Sherman commented, "Roblox's growth over the past two years has been one of the best-kept secrets in the industry. They're experiencing engagement and audience numbers that rival some of the world's biggest gaming and entertainment companies and we see the trajectory continuing to accelerate. This is an exciting time to come on board."
Rimer added, "What we found most compelling about Roblox, aside from its impressive engagement metrics, was the company's unique position not only as an entertainment company, but as a technology platform that enables millions to imagine and create. Roblox's vision to continue to extend the capabilities of its platform will drive ever greater engagement by players and creators to create new worlds and experiences."
On the Index Ventures blog, Rimer also expressed his feeling that Roblox served as a "spawning ground for future generations of game developers, directors, writers, architects, musicians and other creators. The leaders in those fields all started very early, finding ways to experiment, iterate and indulge their passion.
"I'm pretty convinced that the most prolific game developers of tomorrow are fooling around in the sandboxes of companies like Roblox, just as future Oscar and BAFTA winners are honing their skills on YouTube, or the next Annie Leibovitz has just set up her Instagram account."