The news: AccelByte, a Seattle startup that provides backend tools for “live service” video games, raised $60 million in a Series B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Sony Interactive Entertainment, Galaxy Interactive and NetEase also invested. The company raised $10 million in September.
The details: AccelByte gives developers a ready-made set of tools to manage the behind-the-scenes requirements of a multiplayer online game. The idea is provide necessary programs and scalable architecture to game developers that plan to operate “games-as-a-service” (GaaS) — releases that make their money from in-app purchases or subscription fees rather than a single up-front purchase price. Customers include Voxies, Stray Bombay, Striking Distance Studios, and others.
The leaders: Junaili Lie, AccelByte’s CEO and co-founder, was previously director of online technology at Epic Games; an online games technical director for LucasArts; and a lead technical architect at Electronic Arts.
“We started the company five years ago with the hope that we could provide a better backend technology platform so that game developers wouldn’t need to focus on building and scaling a backend themselves,” Lie wrote in a blog post.
