Comment & Opinion

1Up Ventures’ general partner Ed Fries on their cycle of investment and how raising funds from 1Up Ventures can benefit you

“We like to call 1Up Ventures a community of game developers because we really focus on making strong connections between the founders of the game companies we invest in.”

1Up Ventures’ general partner Ed Fries on their cycle of investment and how raising funds from 1Up Ventures can benefit you

Ed Fries created his first video games for the Atari 800 in the early 1980s. He joined Microsoft in 1986 and spent the next ten years as one of the early developers of Excel and Word. In 1996 he left the Office team to pursue his passion for interactive entertainment and created Microsoft Game Studios.

Over the next eight years, he grew the team from 50 people to over 1,200, published more than 100 games including more than a dozen million+ sellers, co-founded the Xbox project, and made Microsoft one of the leaders in the video game business.

In 2004, Fries retired as a Microsoft Vice President and began working as a board member and advisor with entrepreneurs in the video game business as well as serving on the board of many non-profit organisations including the International Game Developers Association, the Pacific Science Center and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2019, Fries joined with some friends to launch 1Up Ventures, a venture fund to support indie game developers around the world.

Fries joins us for Investor Connector at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital 2020, a fringe event which pairs pre-selected developers who are seeking funding with investors.

Before the event takes place next month, we caught up with Fries for his thoughts on investment and how the current pandemic has affected getting funding.

PocketGamer.biz: What’s the primary investments focus of your company?

I love talking to game developers so the first call is usually just me getting to know them better and finding out basic information about what they are building and why

Ed Fries: Our first investments went into teams run by founders with very deep experience in game development. This creates a great base of experience for everyone to draw on. As we move on toward our goal of having 50 members in our community, we are expanding to include some promising newer founders with less experience and ambitious new ideas.

What kind of companies/projects are you interested in?

We only invest in game developers. We don’t invest in tools, platforms, technologies, gamification, esports, etc. We don’t have anything against those things; we just want to create a group of game developers that are all facing similar challenges so we can help them and they can help each other.

What are the key advantages for founders when they raise investment from your company?

We like to call 1Up Ventures a community of game developers because we really focus on making strong connections between the founders of the game companies we invest in and we work to get common obstacles out of their way so they can focus on making great games.

What do you expect to learn from a founder at the first meeting?

In general it’s important to remember that we invest in companies, not just single games, so a good deck will talk about the company and longer term goals, not just the current game in development.

I love talking to game developers so the first call is usually just me getting to know them better and finding out basic information about what they are building and why. I usually get to spend some time explaining how we work and what kinds of opportunities we are looking for.

Do you need a pitch deck, and if so, what information should a founder be sure to include to interest you enough to want to know more and have a meeting?

Some kind of pitch deck is nice to have because some of the investors in our fund like to learn more about who we are investing in and a pitch deck is an easy way for me to share that information. In general it’s important to remember that we invest in companies, not just single games, so a good deck will talk about the company and longer term goals, not just the current game in development.

Did your investment activity or focus change because of Covid-19 pandemic? If yes how?

The pandemic hasn’t really affected how we invest. We look for great teams all over North America and Europe so we often can’t meet in person and are happy to use Zoom or similar tools. For the community we create strong connections through Slack, email and Zoom but also really like to do in-person get-togethers and those have, unfortunately, been put on hold for now.

How has the investment cycle changed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, typically, how long is it taking to close deals?

The pandemic has slowed things down for some of the traditional lead investors but it feels like that is starting to change as the business continues to boom. We can move very quickly once everything is in place

Our fund is designed to collaborate with other larger game oriented venture funds. It is rare for us to be the only investor in a deal. For that reason we are often interested in game companies but can’t invest until they find a lead investor. When possible we try to help in that process. The pandemic has slowed things down for some of the traditional lead investors but it feels like that is starting to change as the business continues to boom. We can move very quickly once everything is in place.

What trends do you see emerging in games over the pandemic that are likely to persist post-pandemic?

The biggest things that I have seen change over the last six months is that everyone has been experimenting with working in a distributed way and many are discovering that it can work quite well for game development.

Some are even deciding they will never go back to an office or are planning a hybrid approach when things open up with a small team in an office and the rest recruited from the best people wherever they are in the world. I don’t think this would have happened without the pandemic. Of course necessity is the mother of invention.

Want to meet Ed Fries at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital 2020?

You could meet Fries and many more investors online next month by signing up for Investor Connector at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital 2020. So if you’re seeking funding, sign up here.

Please note: you can only sign up for the Investor Connector if you’re a registered attendee of Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki Digital 2020. Book your tickets now and you could save more than $190 with our Mid-Term tickets.

We’re also allocating a limited amount of free passes solely for small indie developers, enabling them to meet with investors and publishers, and learn from the industry’s biggest names. If you think you qualify, sign up here.