Former Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies has raised $110 million in Series D funding for his studio Build A Rocket Boy, with the funds being deployed to build a trilogy of new “flagship” products.
Credits to Benzies include lead developer roles on Grand Theft Auto II through V, and clearly his exempliary track record has played a part in fostering investors’ faith in his future endeavours.
Funding a trio
The massive $110 million funding round was led by RedBird Capital Partners with further support from NetEase Games, Galaxy Interactive, Endeavor, Alignment Growth, Woodline Partners LP, and GTAM Partners. RedBird Capital partner Julia Wittlin will also be joining the board of directors at Build A Rocket Boy following the investment.
The trio of projects the investment will support are user-generated Arcadia tools, action-adventure game MindsEye, and perhaps the most hotly anticipated of them all, the open-world experience and creation tool Everywhere.
In fact, MindsEye will launch as an experience within Everywhere, designed as a game creation platform and sandbox akin to Roblox, empowering users to make their own content.
“We are excited to partner with RedBird and our other investors to help us launch Everywhere, MindsEye, and what we believe will be game-changing UGC design tools in Arcadia. RedBird’s expertise in building successful entertainment and media platforms will be invaluable and makes them a perfect partner,” Benzies said.
“I started Build A Rocket Boy so that I could continue to share the stories I love with players and give them a place to create and share. We believe in a future where game creation is put in the hands of the players, and we will empower them with the tools to help shape this vision with us.”
Wittlin added: “We are pleased to partner with and support exceptional talent like Leslie and the Build A Rocket Boy team as they build the next genre-defining game studio and entertainment platform. RedBird’s investment portfolio in media, entertainment, sports and experiential consumer enables a differentiated perspective on the gaming industry and its convergence with other forms of interactive entertainment.”
Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto remastered trilogy landed on Netflix in December, with all three titles included originally produced by Benzies. The recent re-release has been enjoying huge succcess all over again.
