RecRoom: A digital third place for kids at heart

Today I’m excited to share that Rec Room has raised a $100M Series D, led by Sequoia and Index.

I first met cofounder Nick Fajt in 2016, and from the start, I loved his vision of building a fun, welcoming, third place for kids at heart. I grew up playing Neopets, Wii Sports, The Sims, and Roller Coast Tycoon… where I learned a lot about life and running my very first “businesses.”

Nick had a vision of supercharging these experiences with massive multiplayer worlds, a friendly and safe community, and the ability to create and share your own games, both for fun and to earn money. Nick also believed that whereas the the last era of social centered on sharing real world experiences online, the next era of social would be centered on both creating and sharing these moments online. I knew that everything we talked about was every kid’s dream — and one I wanted us to help create.

We led the Seed round from Sequoia in 2016 and the Series A in 2017, and have been working closely with cofounders Nick Fajt and Cam Brown on the board ever since. We’ve continued to invest in every round of the company’s history, and deepen our partnership even further by leading the Series D.

Today, Rec Room is a digital third place for kids at heart. As a new generation is coming online and looking for fun, interactive play with friends old and new, Rec Room is *the* destination to explore new worlds, create your own games to share with the community, and even earn money and fame while doing so!

Rec Room now has 15M registered users who have created millions of games and worlds on the platform. The vibrant energy and creativity of the community is truly awe-inspiring. Here’s a peek at some of my favorite player created games and worlds:

With the holidays coming up, Rec Room is also hosting ^RecHolidayMarket, a beautiful snow-capped chalet village where you can ski with friends, shop at the local holiday market, participate in the snowman building competition, or just show off your ugly sweater while sipping a hot chocolate with friends!

With the Series D, we are thrilled to leverage the resources of this round to continue to double down on these key pillars:

(1) Enable cross-platform play. Whether you’re on mobile (iOS mobile and iPad), console (PS4 and Xbox, where Rec Room is currently the #1 free-to-play game!), or VR (Quest), Rec Room is right there alongside you.

(2) Create the most imaginative games and worlds, all with a simple maker pen inside the game. Rec Room’s vision is to democratize access for anyone to create with the most sophisticated yet simple-to-use creator tools (no coding required!). The team is also excited to launch P2P monetization to enable creators to monetize their own creations — enabling the new side hustle for kids.

(3) Create the most fun, safe, and friendly community, open to all. Whether you’re looking for a dungeon crawler quest to tackle with friends, or an enchanted forest from your favorite movie to explore with friends, Rec Room is for you.

It’s been a fun ride the last few years, with many more adventures to come.

We’re scaling the team (https://recroom.com/jobs) and would love to see you soon in Rec Room — come join us!(https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rec-room/id1450306065)!