Blue Ocean Games announces $30M fund to invest in indie games via game challenge
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Summary
Blue Ocean Games, backed by Krafton, the South Korean publisher of battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), has launched a $30m fund to invest in the next generation of indie game developers and support around 100 of them over the next three years.
The company’s founder, Damian Lee, said the fund aimed to expand the pool of investors prepared to back lesser-known indie developers and their more innovative game concepts, and to re-imagine the industry ecosystem itself.
The company is launching a new form of investment instrument called SAIL (Structured Agreement for Indie Launch) and an online competition called Rising Tide to help developers prove their ideas, gain recognition, and access funding.
The SAIL funding model offers concept-stage funding of 100,000perdeveloper,orupto300,000 per team, spread out over two years, with an agreement that balances developer control with investor returns and ensures developers retain IP ownership.
SAIL offers developers validation milestones that are more objective than subjective checkpoints and a “fast track pass” to an expedited application process for funding.