Roman Abramovich and his partners invested $20 million in video games. The money was raised by 110 Industries
The investment company 110 Industries, about which we conducted an independent investigation at the beginning of the year, was still able to attract a large tranche. She “raised” $20 million. Among the key investors is Roman Abramovich‘s investment company Norma Investment.
This is reported by the Vedomosti newspaper. It also writes that in addition to Abramovich, they took part in the transaction:
- GEM Capital investment firm, which previously invested in developers Atomic Heart (Mundfish), and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (Owlcat Games), as well as in companies such as Game Garden and Coursera;
- film producer Sergey Kornykhin, who took part in the creation of the domestic films “I’m losing weight“, “Fidelity” and the TV series “Tolya the robot“.
The money will be used to develop the investment company’s first game, Wanted: Dead, which is scheduled for release in 2022. It is being developed by an unnamed “famous Japanese studio”. Exactly how much each investor invested is not reported.
Kornykhin, as one of the investors, is confident that he will be able to use his television experience in future 110 Industries games. He also notes that the company in which he invested does not create games itself, but comes up with a story, and then hires a contractor to implement it.
About this a year earlier, the founder of 110 Industries Sergey Kolobashkin and his business partner Anton Poletaev spoke about it in an interview with Rusbase. Based on this interview and the presentations for investors that fell into our hands, we conducted an investigation at the beginning of the year.
We were then very confused by the statements of 110 Industries. The company hinted in an interview that it works with top studios. In the presentation, she openly claimed that she had worked on Hellblade, Hitman 2, Sekiro, Artifact, and now “on a short leg” with From Software, Platinum Games and Remedy.
As part of the investigation, some of the developers of these games stated that they did not work with 110 Industries. Kolobashkin himself in an interview with App2Top.ru he denied working with Ninja Theory and involvement in the presentation (although the investors we talked to stated that he both sent it and showed it).
Against the background of controversial statements about the industry and the lack of evidence of work with real game studios, the profile investors with whom we talked expressed cautious skepticism about the company. As one of the experts put it: “It seems to me that this is a collection of money from the “oilmen”, but not a *** ovo, but, as they say, a superficial examination.”
However, in an interview with Vedomosti, Roman Gursky, a representative of GEM Capital (by the way, it was founded by former Gazprom top manager Anatoly Paly), said that he had read the contract with an unnamed Japanese company, and also communicated with its employees.
It was this contract that became the decisive factor for the partnership,” Gursky noted: “We were convinced that one of the best teams in the world was developing the project.” Perhaps we are talking about From Software, which 110 Industries previously claimed to work with.
But there is a nuance. According to one of the investment presentations that 110 Industries previously sent to potential partners, the Wanted: Dead shooter was supposed to be developed by Remedy, and the Japanese were contracted to the Vengeance Is Mine slasher.
Slide from one of the investment presentations of 110 Industries Also on the topic:
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