Gaming studio Believer Entertainment raises $55M

Believer Entertainment, a new gaming studio led by former Riot Games executives, closed a $55 million Series A round to help launch the new venture.

Why it matters: Investment in the gaming space continues to grow despite a choppy economy.

• The $55 million was more than the company initially planned to raise, CEO Michael Chow tells Tim.
• As the gaming space has developed, "investors have also developed a lot in particular over the past five to seven years, where they're bullish, they’re long-term focused," says Chow.

Be smart: Lead investor Lightspeed in particular is increasing its gaming presence. In January, the firm hired Moritz Baier-Lentz as a partner and its head of gaming.

Details: Believer is led by Chow, a former Riot Games vice president, and chief product officer Steven Snow, who was a founding member of Riot.

• The funding will be primarily used to hire staff.
• Andreessen Horowitz, Bitkraft Ventures, Riot Games, 1Up Ventures, Don Thompson’s Cleveland Avenue and Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company also participated in the round.
• Believer will be mainly focused on building open-world games.

The big picture: More gaming developers are not tying themselves to a single platform. Add Believer to that list.

• "There's tons of valuable users that choose now today to only engage through mobile, and there's still a large pool of users that choose to only engage through PC, and let's be honest, the consoles are a great environment for a lot of our consumers as well," Snow says.

Editor’s note: The story was updated to correct the first name of Believer’s CEO, Michael Chow..