Eternights developer Studio Sai has announced that it has raised $7 million in a Seed funding round led by PUBG publisher Krafton. With Eternights already launched, the round will go towards developing Studio Sai’s second title.

A wealth of artistic experience

Studio Sai was established in June 2020 by Jae Hyun Yoo, who founded the company after accruing experience with noteworthy names like Blizzard Entertainment, Riot Games and Apple. His specialty throughout the majority of the 2010s was in visual effects, working as the senior VFX artist at Blizzard and later as senior technical VFX artist for Riot Games.

Yoo’s time at Blizzard included VFX work on World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. He also spent three years with Disney as an animator on Frozen, Big Hero 6 and Wreck-It Ralph.

At Apple, Yoo took on a different type of role as an AR prototyper involved in augmented reality ideation before ultimately starting his own indie studio, Sai, one year later.

While Eternights is not currently available on mobile, the future platform for the studio’s next title is currently unknown; given Yoo’s extensive history with mobile-associated studios and the investment from mobile devs, it is entirely possible that the next game will be. After all, in addition to Krafton’s support in the Seed Round, Studio Sai also received investment from Chinese developer Hypergryph, known for its flagship mobile game Arknights. The tower defence game was a big player in pushing strategy games to $2.8 billion in player spending back in 2020.

"I made Studio Sai to develop games where players can truly feel connected to the character they play with. I believe that this sort of genre of storytelling still has a huge room for growth," said Yoo.

Last week, Riot Games’ League of Legends: Wild Rift surpassed the prestigious milestone that every mobile game hopes to reach: $1 billion in player spending. Krafton, meanwhile, with all its many successes, has earned a place in our Top 50 Mobile Game Makers list.