Thatgamecompany, which makes the popular mobile game Sky: Children of the Light, raises $160M from TPG and Sequoia Capital
Thatgamecompany has built amazing and emotional game worlds such as Sky and Journey, and today it is announcing it has raised $160 million in funding.
Context & Ripple Effects
Thatgamecompany's $160M round lands in the middle of a run of large checks into studios that already have a proven hit: Turkey-based Dream Games raised a $155M Series B at a $1B valuation on the strength of Royal Match last June, and cross-play studio Elodie Games pulled in $32.5M from Galaxy Interactive and a16z months later. The pattern is clear — investors are paying up for teams with shipped, emotionally resonant titles rather than pre-launch bets.
First-order effects
- TPG and Sequoia Capital each take a stake in a studio whose flagship Sky: Children of the Light is already a popular live-service title, giving Thatgamecompany war chest to scale its existing game worlds rather than prove a new one.
- Sequoia's check comes as the firm reportedly raises about $7B for a new fund under its new leadership, so this deal is an early deployment signal for that vehicle.
Second-order effects
- Studios with comparable hit mobile titles — Dream Games most directly — now have a peer capitalized at a similar level, raising the stakes for who can fund live-ops expansion, new platforms, and talent retention fastest.
- Growth funds like TPG entering game studios alongside traditional gaming VCs pressures earlier-stage backers such as Galaxy Interactive and a16z to either write bigger checks or move down-market.
Third-order effects
- If the Dream Games and Thatgamecompany rounds are the template, late-stage game financing consolidates around proven IP holders, making a shipped hit — not a prototype — the entry ticket for nine-figure capital.
- Cross-platform ambitions of the kind Elodie Games is funded to pursue become table stakes: capital at this size will favor studios that can carry one emotional world across PC, console, and mobile.
The trend: Growth-stage capital is rotating toward established mobile game studios with proven hit titles, with mega-funds like Sequoia and TPG competing alongside specialist gaming investors.