LA-based Believer, a studio founded by ex-Riot executives that plans to build open world games using generative AI, raised a $55M Series A led by Lightspeed
There is a moment of wonder in every great game that makes you sit back … FinSMEs : The Believer Company Raises $55M in Series A Funding Tim Baysinger / Axios : Gaming studio Believer Entertainment raises $55M Business Wire : Former Riot Executives Launch The Believer Company with $55 Million in Series A Funding from Lightspeed, Andreessen Horowitz, BITKRAFT, Cleveland Avenue … Tweets: Ingrid / @ingridlunden : I like it when people don't mince their words. “We say no fucking thanks to NFTs,” the co-founder of new gaming startup Believer told me. The startup has however said yes fucking thanks to something else: $55 million in funding. Story here: https://techcrunch.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Believer lands in a studio-funding market that has already cycled through one big narrative. In 2021, Mythical Games raised $150M led by Andreessen Horowitz for a platform built on playable NFTs, while ProbablyMonsters pulled in a $200M Series A on a multi-studio AAA structure. Both rounds priced the thesis as much as the games.
The difference today is which thesis: Believer's ex-Riot founders are selling generative AI for open-world development — and, per their co-founder's blunt comment to TechCrunch, explicitly rejecting NFTs even while a16z, which backed the NFT-platform play, joins Lightspeed, BITKRAFT, and Cleveland Avenue in this round. The same check-writers are rotating between narratives.
First-order effects
- Believer gets $55M to staff up and prove generative AI can compress open-world production costs, with Lightspeed setting the terms rather than a crypto-native investor.
- The founders' public 'no thanks to NFTs' stance draws a hard line against the 2021 cohort's positioning — studios like Mythical now sit on the wrong side of the pitch that top-tier VCs currently fund.
Second-order effects
- Gaming-focused funds face a portfolio conflict: Andreessen Horowitz holds both the largest NFT-gaming bet and a stake in its most vocal AI-gaming rival, pressuring it to steer follow-on capital toward whichever thesis shows traction.
- Other pedigree-founder studios raising now will be measured against Believer's AI framing, forcing them to attach a technology story — AI tooling, platform economics — rather than compete on team résumés alone.
Third-order effects
- If AI-production studios deliver cheaper content faster, venture funding for game studios consolidates around whoever owns the technology layer, echoing how the NFT-platform round concentrated capital around Mythical's infrastructure claim.
- A failed AI-content thesis would leave a second stranded cohort of well-funded studios, reinforcing that studio valuations track narrative cycles more than shipped games.
The trend: Venture capital for game studios is rotating from NFT-platform theses to generative-AI production theses, with the same marquee investors following founder pedigree across both waves.