News

Ex-Z2 team Starform raises $1.25 million to focus on mobile games to play with friends

New studio moving fast

Date Type Companies involved Size
September 17th, 2019 investment Play Ventures
Starform
$1.3m
Ex-Z2 team Starform raises $1.25 million to focus on mobile games to play with friends

Seattle-based mobile game studio Starform has announced it’s raised $1.25 million in funding.

Investors include Henric Suuronen and Harri Manninen’s Play Ventures fund, Ed Fries’ 1Up Ventures, and Breakaway Growth Fund, which was co-founded by ex-London Venture Partners Paul Heydon.

When it comes to early stage funding, that’s a pretty impressive selection of names.

The old team’s back together again

Co-founded by Z2 CEO Lou Fasulo - Z2 was acquired by King in 2015 in deal worth up to $150 million - Starform’s management team also including ex-Z2 execs Josh Rosen, Taylor Daynes and Jason English.

In that context, the company could - perhaps - be viewed as Z2 Mk 2.

Z2 was a midcore mobile game developer which generated more than $200 million in revenues from games such as trading sim Trade Nations, racer Nitro, and air combat franchise MetalStorm.

It also released casual sim Paradise Bay for King and was working on strategy title Rise of Tyrants (much anticipated at PocketGamer.biz) when it was shut down in 2016.

More fun together

Few details have been released about what Starform is working on now, although it says its goal is “building experiences that are played together with friends”.

We believe that the best games are forged in the crucible of player feedback.
Lou Fasulo

To-date, the studio has focused on building a platform that enables rapid prototyping of online features, to shorten the time taken to move from an idea to testing.

“We believe that the best games are forged in the crucible of player feedback. We view players as an extension of our team, and we see exciting new ways to play emerging from that collaboration,” commented Fasulo.

"We at Play Ventures are honoured to be backing Lou and his strong team,'' says Henric Suuronen, Founding partner at Play Ventures.

“Their unique approach to game making and the evolution of player communities as co-creators is very exciting and we believe this is the start of something really, really big.”

You can find out more about Starform via its website.


Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.