Seattle’s newest unicorn: Rec Room raises $100M as social gaming popularity

#Discussion(Startup) [ via IoTGroup ]

Seattle-based Rec Room has raised $100 million in new funding. “I’m really excited for Seattle as a startup ecosystem ” Fajt said. How it works: Rec Room is a free download which lets players use a collection of tools to make virtual rooms objects and playable games such as paintball and laser tag with a vast amount of community-created content that’s growing all the time. When GeekWire visited the company’s office and tested Rec Room in 2017 the startup was focused on virtual reality.

Traction: Rec Room has attracted 15 million lifetime users and over 2 million people have created content on the platform. When asked whether Rec Room is a game a social app or a user-generated content platform Fajt said the answer the company normally gives is … yes. And Rec Room is capitalizing on users’ dissatisfaction with traditional social media which Fajt says predates the pandemic and will probably stick after the pandemic. But Rec Room likes the way its users can create in the app itself and switch from being a player to a creator multiple times during a session. “The way you’re building in Rec Room is a lot more like building in ‘Minecraft ‘” Fajt said.

Rec Room’s launch of the Creator Compensation Program is aimed at paying out more than $1 million in bonuses to Rec Room users who’ve made particularly popular content for the game. Investors: Rec Room has raised $149 million in total funding and the new round comes just a few months after the company raised $20 million in December. “I’d be lying if I said there weren’t conversations that happen every now and then ” Fajt said about whether his company has attracted interest from big tech or gaming companies. “Our focus is how can we build Rec Room into the biggest standalone enduring company … that’s really going to last really going to impact culture really going to have a positive influence on people’s lives.” Employee count: “We are hiring up a storm ” Fajt said of Rec Room which is No. 140 on the GeekWire 200 our ranked

Read More..
AutoTextExtraction by Working BoT using SmartNews 1.03976957683 Build 04 April 2020