Shroud of the Avatar Raising $2M From Investors, Aiming for July, 2017 Release
While Shroud of the Avatar raised money on Kickstarter in the past it looks like Portalrium, Shroud's developer, is expanding their fund raising efforts to SeedInvest, an equity crowd funding platform. Unlike Kickstarter, people who fund Shroud of the Avatar on SeedInvest will get an ownership stake in the company and profit if the game succeeds. The game is looking to raise $2M at a $25M pre-money valuation with minimum investments starting at $500. Normally when a game raises money on places like Kickstarter they don't have to reveal too much about their internal finances but now that they're trying to sell a stake in themselves they posted a ton of information on their fundraising page.
Some interesting tidbits from the fundraising page:
- Aiming for July, 2017 release
- Over 150,000 player registrations
- Company has $528,000 cash on hand
- Company is burning $230,000 a month to sustain operations
- Company valued at $20M after a Series A round in 2012, aiming for $25M now
Shroud of the Avatar isn't the only crowd funded game that moved from Kickstarter to an equity crowfunding platform. Crowfall did the same thing earlier this year and raised over $600,000 on Indiegogo's equity platform. To further incentivize people to back the game, Portalrium is offering investors in-game perks as well as equity ownership in their company. These rewards begin at $500 (the minimum amount) and go up to $30,000 for a tax free player owned castle.
I personally plan on buying the game at launch but I have no intentions on investing as this sounds a bit desperate to me. Richard Gariott, the founder and CEO of Portalarium, is a multi millionaire who spent over $30M to visit the International Space Station could easily just continue funding the game himself but chooses not to. In addition, the company was able to raise MUCH more money in the past from various venture capital firms (they raised $7M in 2012) but are now trying to get $2M from public equity crowdfunding. It all sounds a bit desperate too me and despite enjoying the game I don't think this will be a good investment. The guy who literally made the game and founded the studio could have self-funded all of this if he thought it was going to be successful, but he chooses not to.
Some community outrage about the fundraising and current state of the game / financials can be found on reddit here.
