We’ve Raised Another $4.5 Million
Enabling gamers to easily share their in-game moments has been an obsession of mine for my entire adult life. It all started with an amazing “WTF!” moment in World of Warcraft that happened during my freshman year of college that was forever lost because I couldn’t get FRAPS working properly. I ran out of my dorm room to tell my friends, but no one believed me because I didn’t have proof! Little did I know, that one in-game moment would start a journey that would span the next nine years of my life and would result in me founding two different startups to tackle this problem.
It began with my first startup called WeGame in 2007, which I started less than a month after that life-changing World of Warcraft moment. WeGame ended up reaching over three million users and raised over $3 million in venture capital. In 2011, WeGame was acquired, but I felt like there was still so much opportunity in the space. Inevitably, I was drawn back to my obsession and started Forge, which launched to the world in February.
With Forge, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to continue pursuing my vision of enabling more gamers to share their gameplay thanks to an amazing team and supportive investors, many of whom have been with me as colleagues or investors for the last nine years since I was 19. Today, less than one percent of gamers are actively sharing their gameplay, but this behavior has resulted in the creation of huge platforms like Twitch and YouTube and helped pave the way for new industries like eSports to flourish. I believe we’re just at the beginning of this revolution in gaming and Forge is in a unique position to help power the next wave of gamers to share their in-game experiences by making it as simple as pushing a button.
It’s great to know we’re not the only ones who believe in this opportunity. Today, I’m excited to announce that we raised $4.5 million in Series A led by our friends at True Ventures. Existing investors Resolute Ventures and WME Ventures also participated in the round, and we are especially excited to welcome new investors Social Capital (you may have heard that their portfolio includes Slack, Yammer, Box, etc…. nbd :)). To date, we have raised a total of $9 million since we launched our public beta less than four months ago. We’re so grateful for everyone’s support so far. We wouldn’t have been able to become what we are today without our community.
In addition to the funding, Social Capital’s Arjun Sethi is joining our Board of Directors. Sethi is known for being a former founder and CEO of MessageMe (acquired by Yahoo) and former CEO of social game developer Lolapps (acquired by Nexon), and just knows a lot about games (But can he beat us in Overwatch? Only time will tell.).
With this new funding, we will be rapidly growing the team to enable us to continue to create the best and easiest way for gamers to share their favorite moments. We have a lot of neat stuff in the works, so stay tuned for more updates. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to be the first to know!
Thank You,
Jared Kim
CEO, Forge
P.S. We’re hiring :)
