Artillery, a core gaming startup in Palo Alto, CA, has raised a Series A funding round led by Chinese Internet giant Tencent. The round also had participation from First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Signia Ventures, General Catalyst, Charlie Cheever, Crunchfund, and a number of angel investors.
'This funding enables us to get our first game, a free-to-play RTS codenamed Atlas, into the hands of our players. We've grown to 22 employees and plan to expand our testing at the end of this year,' said Ankur Pansari, Artillery's CEO.
In 2013, Sean 'Day[9]' Plott, the eSports celebrity with an online audience of millions, joined the company as its head of game design. 'Our focus is on building super fun games that entertain audiences for years,' said Sean Plott. The team is comprised of passionate gamers hailing from a number of top technology companies such as Facebook, Google, Palantir, and Lucas Arts.
'We're excited to have Tencent onboard as an investor and advisor. Their experience working with other top free-to-play PC titles makes them an ideal fit with our vision for Atlas,' said Ankur Pansari. 'We've learned a lot from them already and their feedback has been invaluable.'