Billionaire Roman Abramovich and partners invest $20 million in video games

UK gaming company 110 Industries raised $20 million from Roman Abramovich’s investment company Norma Investment, GEM Capital, and film producer Sergey Kornykhin, Vedomosti reports.

Wanted: dead concept art

110 Industries founded by Anton Poletaev and Sergey Kolobashkin in 2017 is not a development studio. It acts as a production center. The company creates a script, concept art for characters, and then hires a third-party studio to develop the title based on those. 110 Industries plans to work with top foreign studios focusing on premium single-player titles for consoles and streaming game services.

The deal marks Abramovich’s first investment in video games. GEM Capital, on the other hand, has previously invested in Atomic Heart by Mundfish and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous by Owlcat Games.

Most of the $20 million raised will be spent on the development of the first title from 110 Industries. The company hired an unnamed “well-known Japanese game studio” to develop the game, which is titled Wanted: dead. 110 Industries is getting part of the rights and part of the future revenue from it. The game is due out in 2022.

Interestingly, one of the presentations 110 Industries sent to investors earlier names a different developer. According to the leaked slide posted by App2Top, the title was initialy to be developed by Remedy. The project might have changed the development studio, but the required budget indicated in the presentation more or less matches the size of the investment made. The team behind the project also includes some notable names, although it’s unclear whether they are currently attached to the project.