Verse8 Completes $5 Million Seed Round to Accelerate AI-Driven Game Creation
- Core Viewpoint: AI-native game creation platform Verse8 has completed a $5 million seed round. It aims to significantly lower the barrier to creating interactive content using generative AI technology, enabling anyone to quickly generate playable multiplayer online games without coding, thereby reshaping the way interactive media is created.
- Key Elements:
- Verse8 has completed a $5 million seed round, jointly led by multiple investors from the gaming and tech sectors, including Story Foundation, Nexon, and Netmarble's Web3 division.
- The platform allows creators to use natural language prompts to generate fully playable multiplayer games within minutes, eliminating the need for coding, engine installation, or large teams required in traditional game development.
- Since its launch in July 2024, the platform has surpassed 3.5 million monthly active users, with over 5,000 active creators generating a total of 25,000 games.
- Verse8 automates development stages such as art, coding, and design, and integrates with Story to provide on-chain ownership, licensing, and distribution, supporting creators in retaining attribution rights and earning revenue.
- Its vision is to address the current capital and labor-intensive, power-concentrated issues in game development, promoting the formation of a new, creator-led, AI-native category of interactive media.
Verse8, an AI-native platform that enables creators to instantly turn ideas into playable games, today announced the completion of a $5 million seed funding round. This round was co-led by Story Foundation, NEXPACE (Nexon's Web3 division), Neowiz, MARBLEX (Netmarble's Web3 division), Solarium Labs, and NEXUS, with participation from multiple investors in the gaming, media, and technology sectors.
The new capital will be used to advance Verse8's core AI systems, expand its creator onboarding and incentive programs, and scale its publishing and distribution infrastructure.
This funding round comes at a pivotal inflection point for interactive media. While generative AI is drastically reducing the cost and complexity of content creation, the creation of interactive experiences remains constrained by lengthy development cycles, large teams, and centralized studios. Billions of people globally create videos, music, and images, yet only a tiny fraction possess the skills and tools to make games. Verse8 is built for this inflection point, aiming to empower anyone to create real-time, multiplayer games.
Verse8 allows creators to generate fully playable multiplayer games within minutes using natural language prompts, with no need for coding, engine installation, or assembling large production teams. A simple idea can transform into a real-time interactive experience, instantly deployed and accessible to players worldwide.
Since its launch in July 2024, the platform has attracted over 3.5 million monthly active users for game creation and play, with more than 5,000 active creators generating over 25,000 games.
Verse8 was co-founded by JC Kim and Kevin Lee, seasoned entrepreneurs with deep experience in blockchain gaming, platform building, and strategic investment. Their backgrounds include pioneering blockchain business at LINE, successfully founding and exiting startups, and deploying over $200 million in gaming investments, enabling Verse8 to focus on speed, accessibility, and creative iteration from day one.
Jake Song, the creator of Korea's iconic *Lineage* series and co-founder of Nexon, will serve as a core advisor, providing strategic guidance for Verse8's AI-powered gaming platform.
Reimagining Creation for Interactive Media
Today's game development is capital and labor-intensive. Production typically involves lengthy cycles, multi-disciplinary teams, and budgets reaching tens of millions of dollars, concentrating creative and economic power in the hands of a few studios. Verse8 dramatically lowers these barriers by enabling creators to transform text prompts into real-time, shared game worlds within minutes, unlocking experimentation and creativity at scale.
"Globally, only about 3 million creators are making interactive content, with the top 20 studios controlling 70% of the output," said Kevin Lee, CEO of Verse8. "Verse8 is changing that. By compressing the tools of a full game studio into a prompt, we are empowering all creators to build interactively. This funding allows us to deepen our technology and expand an ecosystem where creativity compounds instead of starting from scratch."
S.Y. Lee, Co-founder and CEO of Story, stated, "AI is lowering the cost of creation across all media formats, but games have been the last frontier. Verse8 is tackling the hardest part of this problem—compressing months of development and millions of dollars into minutes of natural language prompts—and doing it from day one in a way that aligns creators, IP holders, and distribution channels. We believe this marks the beginning of a new creative stack for interactive media, with Verse8 at its center."
Verse8 automates art, code, design, and quality assurance while supporting continuous iteration and deployment. Through integration with Story, it provides on-chain ownership, licensing, and distribution, allowing creators to retain attribution, earn revenue, and safely remix existing IP.
Verse8 believes this approach lays the foundation for a new category of creator-led, AI-native interactive media, with gaming representing the first scalable application in a broader shift in how digital content is created, owned, and distributed.
About Verse8
Verse8 is an AI-native creation and publishing platform that allows anyone to turn ideas into interactive games and stories. By combining generative AI, an integrated game engine, and on-chain ownership, Verse8 lowers the barrier to interactive creation and supports a new generation of creator-led digital worlds. The platform, developed by Planetarium Labs in collaboration with Jake Song, leverages deep gaming expertise and strategic partnerships to deliver high-fidelity interactive experiences at scale.
