Lightheart Entertainment raises $6.8 million to develop games in ‘Hypercore’ genre

Lightheart Entertainment is a Finnish studio known for its mobile platformer Mr Autofire. The company has raised $6.8 million to create more games, which combine elements from hypercasual and mid-core titles.

On April 20, the studio shared the news on its official website. Makers Fund led a Series A round, joining existing investors Sisu Game Ventures and Galaxy Interactive.

Lightheart Entertainment, which has 12 employees, plans to spend the money on hiring more people and building porotypes for its next game. Developers call themselves “pioneers” of the Hypercore genre — games that combine simple gameplay of hypercasual projects with metagame and live operations of mid-core titles.

Mr Autofire is the only game Lightheart Entertainment has released so far. It is a mobile platformer that has reached over $10 million in revenue and generated 5 million downloads since its launch in 2019.

“We’ve done away with the concept of soft launches and global launches,” Lightheart Entertainment CEO Kalle Kaivola said. “When we select a prototype to turn into a game, we make it a priority to learn everything we can about it. […] We start marketing at a low rate and gradually learn, grow, and iterate.”

Makers Fund believes in the studio’s ambitions, calling Lightheart Entertainment “one of the few companies to successfully execute in the ‘Hypercore’ game genre.”