Free-to-play games developer Kixeye has closed a $20 million investment round to fund its new machine learning platform.

The company said the AI tech can be used by other studios to help optimise marketing, monetisation and retention.

The platform works by powering a dynamic in-game marketplace that adapts itself to player behaviour, offering up items for sale and other rewards tailored specifically for each user.

It also traces how users are playing the game and where points of frustration may appear, and then alerts developers to issues which could then be patched to help improve retention further.

Kixeye claims the tech has helped its latest mobile title War Commander: Rogue Assault retain and monetise players twice as well as its previous games.

Capital injection

The large funding round comes six years after the company’s previous $22 million investment.

The current round was led by Icon Ventures and also included Ridge Ventures, Trinity Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The latter company’s MD Jeremy Liew has returned to Kixeye’s board of directors.

"I've seen many companies make the mistake of over-raising capital and crippling their operating agility,” said Kixeye CEO Will Harbin.

"We’ve built a successful business with only $22 million in funding six years ago versus others in our tier who have raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

"That said, this is another strategically targeted capital injection that will guide the next phase of growth for us."

Get the latest news, interviews and in-depth analysis on Twitter, Facebook and our daily newsletter.